Fridae

Former British Member of Parliament Leo Abse died in hospital in London on Tuesday after a short illness, British media reported. He had served in the House of Commons from 1958 to 1987 and his legacy includes decriminalising gay sex acts under the Sexual Offences Bill in 1967, liberalising divorce laws and sponsoring what eventually became the 1975 Children's Act.

According to The Times, Abse - as a Labour Member of Parliament from Wales - first introduced a Bill in 1961 to abolish the sodomy law which was placed on the books in 1885 during the Victorian era. Among the more notable victims of the law was writer Oscar Wilde. The Bill was however killed as the Lord Chancellor considered its subject "too filthy to be discussed in Cabinet." He however continued to champion the cause until the historic legal changes of 1967 in which he sponsored legislation decriminalising sex acts in private between adult men over the age of 21 in England and Wales.

Abse also was active in passing the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act of 1984, which updated divorce laws, and the Children's Act of 1975, which reformed laws on adoption and fostering.

"I had two great advantages: I was born a Jew in Wales in the benign climate of Welsh nonconformity; we believed we had a covenant with God and God would look after us," Abse said in an interview this year with Intelligent Life magazine.

"Being in a minority within a minority, I had the benefit of being an outsider without feeling inferior. And I never went to university, which meant I wasn't groomed to conform."

Chris Moncrieff in The Daily Mail described Abse as a "reporter's friend - and foe" for speaking "about 350 words a minute, fast-track, fluent and sparkling Welsh waffle that broke many a shorthand-writer's spirit. But he knew how to interest the press, through the issues he raised: homosexuality, divorce and capital punishment."

Katie Hanson, Co-chair, of LGBT Labour which is affiliated to the Labour Party, said: "It was with sadness that we learned of the death of Leo Abse, the former MP for Pontypool and Torfaen. The leadership he showed while serving as a Labour MP will not be forgotten by the lesbian and gay community. Bringing about the Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised sex between men aged 21 and over, was an extraordinarily brave political act in 1967.

"Leo Abse's groundbreaking work paved the way for Labour to deliver full legal equality for lesbians and gay men. He will be remembered fondly by LGBT rights activists. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time."

David Hughes, a writer at The Telegraph and personal friend of Abse wrote that the latter had "set a standard of parliamentary activism that has no equal in modern times."

"It is an extraordinary record of achievement, an object lesson in how a backbench MP can use Parliament to achieve profound changes - provided you have the wit, the energy and the tenacity. James Callaghan was spot on when he said that Abse had done 'much more good in terms of human happiness than 90 per cent of the work done in Parliament on what is called "political issues"'.

"He was a trouble-maker of the best kind, a man who would worry away at an issue if it offended his sense of justice or fairness until he righted it."

Abse is survived by his second wife, a son, a daughter and his brother, the poet Dannie Abse. His wife of 40 years, Marjorie, died in 1996. At 83, he married Ania Czeputkowska, a Polish electrician and later a textile designer who was 51 years younger.