Singapore sodomy law challenge
Singapore’s colonial-era sodomy laws are to face a High Court challenge to their constitutionality.
Section 377A of the Singaporean Penal Code states, “Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years.”
The challenge to Section 377A has been launched by Tan Eng Hong, a man charged with having consensual oral sex with another man after an alleged incident in a shopping centre toilet earlier this year.
“The continuance of Section 377A on the statute book operates to brutalise a vulnerable minority segment of the citizenry for no fault on its point,” Tan’s lawyer wrote to the court.
“A section of society has been thus criminalised and stigmatised to a point where individuals are forced to deny the core of their identity and vital dimensions of their personality.”
Since former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew made a statement in support of tolerance for homosexuals in 2007, Singapore’s Government has repeatedly stated it would decriminalise homosexuality without delivering.
In 2007 the Government legalised anal and oral sex between heterosexuals but left gay men out.
Singapore’s peak GLBT lobby group People Like Us noted that Singapore already had legislation that could be used to police indecent behaviour in its Miscellaneous Offences Act which did not discriminate on the basis of a person’s sex or sexuality.
“That said, People Like Us do not condone sex in public spaces where conflict with other members of society can occur. At no time do we say that these should not be prosecutable offences,” the group said in a statement.
Similar court challenges led to the repeal of colonial-era sodomy laws in Nepal and India in 2007 and 2009.
Paul Mitchell
That is the talk for the last few years on my visits. I have not met the Prime Minister but only heard from those who say they have at private parties. I have also heard great Lee Kuan Yew has changed his view on homosexuality and is moving in the shadows preparing Singapore. There was even a pride gathering recently. Singapore did in fact have Same-Sex Marriage about a hundred years ago but those were the days when the community could simply accept your marriage and not the government decide who could and could not get married.
Here is a clip of him talking about it. I was also told on a radio program he gave passionate support of homosexuality as being genetically natural. I guess we all move on from our ignorance with wisdom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u25ssjfmiRg
Is that true David????
I can recall in 2007 a law was passed in Singapore that amended the 18th century Penal Code to allow both oral and anal sex on the condition that it is between a man and a woman (a bit like our marriage laws here)!!!!!!!!
The law (section 377A) needs to be ripped up and repealed right now, because what is the justification in keeping this “archaic” and outdated law!!!!
If only the Singapore Prime Minister came out about his Taiwan lover…..
It’s about time that the screws *ahem* were put on this vile totalitarian regime. Other countries in South-East Asia are moving towards democracy and gay rights (well, not all but some). Singapore needs what happened in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s ie: a democratic broom through the place.