ABSTRACT
Only in recent times has the debate about tolerance and respect for diversity become a prominent feature of democratic societies. The debate was initiated in 1957, when the Wolfenden Committee made two recommendations to the government: that private prostitution should remain legal and public soliciting be outlawed; and that male homosexual acts in private between consenting adults over the age of twenty-one should be legalised. The main point about moral policing, for Mill, is that it involves the invasion of the private space of individuals. A most important general feature of Mill's defence of the liberty of the individual in matters of private morality is that it is rooted, not in a general theory of rights, but in the doctrine of utility. Private consensual activities between adults that did not directly harm anybody else should be beyond the reach of the criminal law.
