Tag: singapore

Singapore LGBT Update | It’s All Happening in Asia’s Smallest Sovereign State

A lot has been going on in the last few days in terms of gay issues in Singapore. There’s been polls revealed, comments from the Prime Minister, and petitions relating to the Health Promotion Board’s information on homosexuality. A recent survey released by the Institute of Policy Studies has revealed that more than 70 percent… Read more »

Singapore keeps its ban on ‘grossly indecent act between males’

Judge dismisses challenge to anti-gay law, saying prohibition based on moral issue Singapore’s court has struck another blow to gay rights, refusing for the second time in this year to strike down a colonial law that criminalizes sex between men. The first Singaporean who had contested the law nearly three years ago, Tan Eng Hong,… Read more »

Singapore High Court upholds anti-gay law in Tan Eng Hong’s case

Singapore High court Justice Quentin Loh today upheld the law which criminalises sex between men. Singapore High Court Justice Quentin Loh today released a judgement in the Constitutional challenge of statute 377A of the Singapore Penal Code, upholding the law which criminalises sex between men and provides a jail term of up to two years.… Read more »

Record turnout for Singapore’s LGBT Pink Dot rally

With an estimated record turn out of 21,000, Singapore’s Pink Dot rally to support the acceptance of LGBTs has become the second largest gay-affirmative event in Asia in five years, behind the annual Taiwan Pride Parade in Taipei. It was a record turnout for Singapore’s Pink Dot rally on Saturday night as an estimated 21,000… Read more »

Gay culture gaining momentum in Singapore

Although homosexuality is against the law, the gay community in this city-state has become more prominent recently. Singapore – Homosexuality in this Southeast Asian city-state has been illegal here for more than a century, dating back to law under colonial British rule. In a country that still lashes convicted criminals with a cane, sexual contact… Read more »

New web censorship rule bans gay content in Singapore

Websites accessed in Singapore subject to regulations that prohibit ‘material [that] advocates homosexuality or lesbianism’ The Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore is introducing a tough new rule that will censor websites that are read from inside the country, even if they are not hosted there. The new rule, which will come into effect on… Read more »

Quick, strong support for appeal of Singapore anti-gay law

“We are seeing the light at the end of tunnel. … We are no longer walking alone, or in tens or hundreds, we are now walking in tens of thousands.” — Bryan Choong In this article, Singapore counseling center manager Bryan Choong welcomes people’s rapid, positive response to the fund-raising campaign supporting the appeal of… Read more »

Singapore High Court rejects repeal of gay sex ban for men

Singapore’s High Court has r­ejected a petition to repeal an archaic law criminalising sex between men. AFP reports the court, which is part of the Supreme Court, said it was up to parliament to repeal a provision in the penal code known as Section 377A – the legality of which has been questioned by a… Read more »

Singapore’s High Court upholds anti-gay sex law

Strait Times in Singapore reports: The High Court has dismissed a legal claim by gay partners Gary Lim and Kenneth Chee that Section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalises sex between two men, was discriminatory and unconstitutional. In his 92-page judgment, Justice Quentin Loh said that Singapore’s society in the midst of change, and… Read more »

Singapore Gay Magazine Finds a Safe Space

In a world filled with headlines about gay marriage, the launch of a magazine for gay men might not be expected to cause a stir. But in conservative Singapore, where criminal law still targets sex between men, Element magazine is so avant-garde that it plans to publish only in the digital world. “Government licenses were… Read more »

Singapore PM criticised for defending anti-gay sex law

Members of the LGBT community in Singapore today expressed their disappointment and outrage over the prime minister’s reasoning as to why section 377A of the Penal Code which criminalises gay sex should remain. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was quoted by Today newspaper as saying: “Why is that law on the books? Because it’s… Read more »

We are family

The idea that “the family unit comprises of a man as Father, a woman as Mother, and Children” is not biblical, writes Rev Miak Siew, executive pastor of Singapore’s Free Community Church and member of gay advocacy group People Like Us. Here he responds to a Singapore pastor’s recent comments that the acceptance of gays… Read more »

Survey shows Singaporeans more accepting of gay people

Academic study shows more positive and less negative attitudes towards gay people from 2005 to 2010 A survey published last month shows that Singaporeans became more tolerant of gay people from 2005 to 2010. The study published in the Asian Journal of Social Psychology showed that 64.5% of respondents held negative attitudes towards homosexuals in… Read more »

Our sisters in Singapore

Gay Star News interviews leading lesbian rights activist in Singapore, Jean Chong The LGBT rights movement in Singapore has been mainly dominated by gay men, but Gay Star News met Jean Chong of lesbian group Sayoni and discovered that sisters are doing it for themselves. Did you have any role models when you were growing… Read more »

Gay parents in Singapore

There aren’t many openly LGBT parents in Singapore, but there are some who’re willing to share their stories. Meet K, a bisexual mum, and P, a gay dad. Here in Singapore, we’ve heard a lot about gay parents. We’ve watched them in movies like The Kids Are All Right and in (illegally downloaded) TV shows… Read more »

Singapore’s gay rights (and blogging) pioneer speaks

Gay Star News talks to Alex Au, born in 1952, one of the pioneers of gay activism and blog writing in Singapore During his lifetime Alex Au has witnessed Singapore’s gay scene move from the underground to the public eye, police tactics move from entrapment and ‘pogroms’ against gay men to ‘non-enforcement’ of the anti-homosexuality… Read more »

How can a pink dot change society?

Gay Star News talks to one of the organizers of Singapore’s Pink Dot, an annual LGBT awareness-raising festival ‘The first Pride in X country’ makes headlines around the world, but what if country creates their own LGBT pride event from scratch? That’s what activists in Singapore have done with Pink Dot. Instead of a rainbow… Read more »

Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures

Editors Audrey Yue and Jun Zubillaga-Pow have curated a solid collection of essays looking at LGBT Singapore from multiple perspectives, examining in particular the coexistence in the nation of institutionalised repression and tolerance of the gay community. Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Edited by Audrey Yue and Jun Zubillaga-Pow Paperback 268 pages Published… Read more »

Yale hosts Singaporean gay rights movement lecture

Lecture informs debate over America’s most gay-friendly Ivy League university opening a campus in a state where homosexuality is illegal In an attempt to placate the controversy around America’s most gay-friendly Ivy League university opening a campus in a state where homosexuality is illegal, Yale hosted a lecture about the gay rights movement in Singapore… Read more »