Laws outlawing homosexual activities, you’d think, were a thing of the past. Yet, in some areas they continue to operate as a hangover from former British colonial legislation, despite Britain itself having banished such laws decades ago. Indeed, in most areas, while some disagree with homosexuality for religious regions and therefore campaign against gay marriage among other causes of the LGBT movement, there is an acceptance of homosexuality as an existing and remaining option and right that people should be afforded. Yet, in Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Section377 of the Penal Code – law originally created at the height of the British Empire – remains in place, criminalizing men caught committing an act of “gross indecency” with another man.
Written by William Barns-Graham
While most the laws that we would now describe as homophobic have now been repealed, Section 377 persists in the law of these countries to the chagrin of LGBT rights supporters and advocates around the world. According to Singapore’s politicians, the law has been kept because it reflects Singapore’s largely conservative society.
“The family is the basic building block of this society” said Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in 2007. “And by family in Singapore we mean one man, one woman, marrying, having children and bringing up children within that framework of a stable family unit.”
The law is largely ineffective, with the Ministry of Home Affairs stating that it “would not take a proactive approach towards enforcing section 377A” in 2010, but that it persists is still an affront to what are viewed as basic human rights in much of the world. In 2010, a man was charged under 377A for engaging in oral sex with another man in a public restroom, though he later pleaded guilty for a different charge of committing an obscene act in public – perhaps a more appropriate charge!
There is strong campaign for change to these laws, which elsewhere in Pakistan and Bangladesh are used to far more effective ends. The High Court is currently hearing the appeal from couple Gary Lim and Kenneth Chee who sought to make the law declared unconstitutional but had their initial case refused. There has also been the recent launch of gay lifestyle magazine ‘Element Magazine’ by Hiro Mizuhara and Noel Ng – the latter of whom is not actually gay – which gained some coverage on the BBC earlier on this year.
“We are nervous but Element Magazine is not a gay rights magazine. It is a lifestyle magazine that takes care of Asian gay men,” they told the BBC.
“What we want to do is for the magazine to be out there for the community, especially young gay men who may think that being gay is wrong because of what they read in mainstream media,” says Hiro.
With censorship guidelines in Singapore banning the public promotion of homosexual acts in the media, the magazine is controversial, but because these laws only apply to print and broadcast media, they are legitimately able to publish the magazine online. Noel claims that he decided to partner Hiro in releasing this magazine as a human rights issue.
“It is more for human rights and we are doing it for the freedom to love,” Noel explains.
Not everyone shares this appreciation of this right with Senior pastor Lawrence Khong of the Faith Community Baptist Church supporting the laws in place, stating that “the repeal of similar laws have led to negative social changes, especially the breakdown of the family as a basic building block and foundation of the society”.
“It attacks religious freedom and eventually denies free speech to those who, because of their moral convictions, uphold a different view from that championed by increasingly aggressive homosexual activists,” he added.
Khong, as any religious or non-religious antagonist to the LGBT cause, is allowed his negative opinions over homosexual acts – freedom of speech and opinion is obviously greatly important to a large extent. – But, in a modern society that has to accommodate differing worldviews that often do not fully cohere, the right to love, as Noel said, is one such right that has to be protected.
Even in Singapore, the seemingly out-dated views of Khong are gaining less sway and it seems only a matter of time before Section 377 is revoked from Singaporean law, ending one more throwback to less tolerant and accepting times.
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