Britain's House of Commons voted overwhelmingly Monday to reduce the age of consent for homosexual men from 21 to 18 after an emotion-charged debate. The vote angered gays, who had lobbied to cut the age to 16 to conform with laws for heterosexuals and lesbians. "Eighteen is not a compromise. It's discrimination," said Peter Tatchell, a spokesman for the gay rights group OutRage. The Commons first narrowly defeated an amendment to lower the age to 16, then voted 427-162 to lower the age to 18. Prime Minister John Major, seeking a compromise, had backed the proposal to lower the age to 18. The proposal to lower the age to 16 was sponsored by Conservative lawmaker Edwina Currie and backed by the opposition Labor Party and the British Medical Association. "I am not for gay rights. I am for equal rights for all," Currie told a crowded Commons chamber before the first vote, in which her measure failed 307 to 280. "At 16, a young man is already able to marry," Currie told the BBC on Monday. "At 10, he is able to be convicted of rape. The idea that they do not know the difference between right and wrong and what they want to do and what they don't want to do because they're gay is preposterous." But many lawmakers felt that 16 was too young, saying 16-year-old boys are too impressionable to know their sexual orientation and could be influenced by older men. Britain was in the vanguard in Europe when it decriminalized homosexuality in 1967, but it has lagged behind the rest of Europe by retaining 21 as age of consent for gay men. Lesbianism was not legislated. Men convicted of violating the age of homosexual consent can receive a prison sentence of up to five years' imprisonment, but the law is not strictly enforced.