Benedict Cumberbatch
A British teenager is famous with girl fans of hit television series “Sherlock.” Reason? He looks very much like a young Benedict Cumberbatch. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch holds his award backstage after he and others from the film "The Imitation Game" accepted the "Ensemble Performance Award" at the 26th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala in Palm Springs, California, January 3, 2015. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

Benedict Cumberbatch’s gay rights campaign has appeared to have been snubbed by Prince William and Kate Middleton. The “Sherlock” star is one of the high-profile celebrities calling for the pardon of around 49,000 men who were prosecuted for their sexuality under the old gross indecency law, but the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge refused to sign the campaign.

Cumberbatch, who plays WWII codebreaker Alan Turing in the film “The Imitation Game,” has led a campaign seeking the pardon of the men prosecuted for being gay under the British “gross indecency” law. The petition was launched by Matthew Breen on Change.org, and has been endorsed by Cumberbatch and other artists and personalities, including actor Stephen Fry, civil rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, biologist Richard Dawkins, “The Imitation Game” director Morten Tyldum and Rachel Barnes, Turing’s niece.

As the petition cites as an example, Turing, who helped decrypt the Enigma code during the Second World War, was prosecuted for gross indecency in 1952. The then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued Turing an official apology on behalf of the British government in 2009. The mathematician was posthumously pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013, decades after he committed suicide in 1954.

There are an estimated 49,000 other men who were prosecuted for homosexuality as well, and they, too, deserve to be pardoned for the act that was considered a crime until it was repealed in part in 1967. Around 15,000 of those men are still alive.

“The UK’s homophobic laws made the lives of generations of gay and bisexual men intolerable,” the letter, obtained by the Guardian, states. “It is up to young leaders of today including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to acknowledge this mark on our history and not allow it to stand.”

But William and Catherine have apparently washed their hands of the issue. A spokesman for the royal couple said that the issue is a matter for government, and they therefore would not make a comment.

Upon his conviction of gross indecency in 1952, Turing was given a choice between imprisonment and probation. He chose probation, which was conditional on his undergoing of hormonal treatment that amounted to chemical castration. He committed suicide two years later.