The Chief Minister gave a formal apology for former laws on homosexuality during the third reading of sex offences bill, which will bring in automatic pardon.

Howard Quayle told the House of Keys: ’I am truly sorry for the hurt caused in the past, so now let us work together to our future as a modern, progressive and tolerant island.’

Gay rights campaigner Alan Shea who presented a petition on Tynwald Day in 1991 dressed as a concentration camp inmate, was in the public gallery.

He said: ’The Chief Minister’s speech was very emotional and very strong and I am very grateful that he has done it.

’It is time to heal.’

Up until 1994 Manx law had stipulated that consenting sexual activity between men was illegal.

Mr Quayle told the Keys: ’It now seems incomprehensible that homosexuality was illegal on our island until 1994.

’That there was a time when consensual sexual activity between men in the privacy of their own homes was seen as a criminal activity, warranting raids, searches and prosecution.

’And this was only in our recent history.

’Before that, many of our countrymen were convicted as criminals, simply for loving another adult.

Many more lived in fear. Afraid to be honest about their identity to their friends, family and work colleagues.

’Forced to feel a sense of shame about who they were.

We will never know the hurt our past laws may have inflicted on our own people. How many suffered; how many perhaps took their own lives and how many left their island never to return?

’The Bill before us today tries to right this historic wrong.

’It gives an automatic pardon to men convicted of homosexual activity that would today be legal.’