Should governments apologize for historical laws against homosexuals and gay sex?

In an Article titled "Homosexuals should get an apology from the state" the authors write:

Quote:

How has the debt for - for criminalization, disease labeling and forced sterilisations - been repaid? How has the pain of violence, grief for the friends or the shame of exclusion been excused? Only with silence. On the Moderate Youth League meeting in the fall, members can vote for the proposal of the government to apologize to the gay and pay damages to transsexuals who were forcibly sterilized. MUF can then decide to push it within the Moderate Party. It's time now. During much of the time when the repression against homosexuals was legitimized in law Sweden was lead by the Social Democrats. Stefan Löfven now have the chance to make up with his party's history and allow the government to give an official apology to homosexuals for all the years of repression and state-sanctioned discrimination. It's time now.

So, should the Swedish Government go out and apologize for how earlier governments enacted or maintained legislation, regulations and policies that discriminated against homo/bi/transsexuals? Should other governments apologize for how their predecessors acted?

I have two general concerns when it comes to these kinds of apologies:

• Why should this government apologize for how earlier governments acted? Shouldn't the people who, actively or passively, allowed said legislation and policies to persist be the ones called to apologize or at least defend their actions or inaction? I'm sure at least a couple of them are alive at the present.
• If something that is currently illegal and subject to legal repression became legal should the current generation of politicians be called out on it? If possessing, producing, consuming, selling or otherwise partaking in the narcotics market was to become legal should the state apologize to the people who were harmed by such legislation? What if paying for sex was to become legal once again? Should the future government apologize to the people who were fined or otherwise ended up humiliated because they had the audacity to pay someone for sex? Should drug dealers be compensated for their troubles?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1CgzdGf