A FEW years ago I was asked to read a poem at a friend’s wedding. After much thought, I settled upon Edwin Morgan’s visceral, astonishingly beautiful, One Cigarette.

Dating from the 1960s, we now know that the Glaswegian former Makar, one of the great poets of the 20th century, wrote it in code about his young male lover. And yet its universality, its deep insight into the intense power and complexity of all human love, continues to shine through. 

Many years later, near the end of his long life, Morgan spoke openly and movingly about how he felt forced to mask his sexuality, his true self, out of fear of losing his job at Glasgow University. He could also have been jailed, of course, or forced to undergo chemical castration, as the inhumane fate of war hero and computing pioneer Alan Turing, and many other men whose names are not so well known to us, highlights.

I thought of Edwin Morgan yesterday when it announced that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will apologise next week to gay men convicted of now-abolished sexual offences and introduce new legislation giving an automatic pardon to those affected.

This apology is important on a number of fronts, not least because it reflects how far Scotland has come on this issue in a relatively short time. As we were reminded recently around the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, Scotland was a latecomer, with our laws only catching up in 1980.

Since then, however, we have arguably made up for being late to the party, swiftly bringing our equality laws into line. Indeed, Scotland now tops global tables when it comes to legal protections for the gay community. More importantly, society itself has changed, with the vast majority of people now accepting the principle that everyone has the right to be who they are and love who they love. 

There will probably be some who will feel Ms Sturgeon’s apology is too little, too late, hollow and perhaps pointless since it does not come accompanied by new measures to tackle the homophobia that undoubtedly still exists in Scottish society. The outwardly gay-friendly nature of Scottish society hides that fact that many gay people still face hostility – the Scottish Government’s own figures show 65 per cent of lesbian and gay young people experience homophobic bullying. 

Elsewhere, some spheres of life remain stubbornly off-limits to progress – does anyone really believe, for example, that there are no gay footballers in the Scottish Premier League? Clearly a rigorous questioning of the nature of masculinity in sport is required to effect change.

State/Government apologies in themselves can be extremely controversial and problematic, of course, especially since they are only worthwhile or meaningful if there is a genuine push on the part of those making them to change behaviour. Arguably, it is rather easy for Nicola Sturgeon to say sorry to gay men for the abominations of the past, since the vast majority of wider society will either back or at least accept the move. The apology also fits with the SNP’s rhetoric around progressive politics, and since her party wasn’t responsible for the law at the time, there won’t be any uncomfortable for her questions to answer. 

In some ways it was thus braver and more significant when then-Prime Minister David Cameron apologised in 2010 on behalf of the Government for the killing of 13 unarmed civilians by British soldiers in Derry-Londonderry on Bloody Sunday; ditto his apology to the families of the 96 dead Liverpool fans for the “double injustice” of Hillsborough itself and the state cover-up that followed. Since all these events happened under Conservative administrations, politically speaking sorry may indeed have felt like the hardest word for Mr Cameron. 

But you can’t deny the power of these formal apologies, especially since they may help the families of victims of these injustices to move on with their lives. Surely that in itself is worth something?

Whether meaningful lessons have been learned on any moral, societal and/or operational level, whether behaviour actually changes, remains to be seen, however.

With this in mind, I would advise any nation or minister wishing to make a genuine apology to look to Germany for inspiration.

The more I visit Berlin, the more I am struck by how the German capital is a living, breathing embodiment of sorrow for the atrocities of Nazism. 
Since reunification in 1990, the city has rebuilt itself as a monument to national shame; they even have a specific word for it, Mahnmal. Berlin wears this shame upon its sleeve in the hope of reminding itself of the past, of finding a better way to live now and in the future. I doubt we in Scotland or the UK would be brave enough to confront ourselves in this way. 

In the meantime, Ms Sturgeon’s apology will, I hope, help alleviate the pain and hurt of those men whose lives were damaged, sometimes ruined, by cruelty and ignorance. I only wish Edwin Morgan was here to see it.