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In Singapore, the law which criminalized sex between men will be repealed, announced the Prime Minister, specifying at the same time that this change would not be a first step towards more rights for homosexuals, since the Constitution will also be amended to ensure that Marriage can only take place between a man and a woman. A halftone announcement for the country’s LGBT community.
With our correspondent in Singapore, Gabrielle Marshals
Two years ago, Singapore decriminalized suicide. It is now another archaic law inherited from English colonization which is about to disappear in the City-State, announced its Prime Minister this Sunday: law S377A which criminalizes sexual relations between men. If in fact, this was no longer applied, it remained, however, assure LGBT activists, a factor of pressure, stigmatization, fear and hatred.
But this announcement, which should in theory delight Singaporean homosexuals, hides another, which worries some. The Prime Minister indeed also announced that the Constitution would be amended in order to prevent any possible evolution towards a homosexual marriage. The Singaporean Head of State thus spoke of ” compromise supposed to reconcile the different ideologies that cross Singaporean society. In recent months, Christian groups had precisely tried to worry public opinion by assuring that if homosexual relations were decriminalized, this would threaten their traditional vision of the family.