Repeal s377A

I’d think of some­thing funny to write about any­thing, but this isn’t one of the times that war­rants any non­sense. I cut and paste for you an open let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter which I hope you will read, then click on the link to the repeal377a.com site, and then add your name to the list. I also hope you put your real name, occu­pa­tion and con­stituency, just to give it a bit more weight.

Why repeal s377A? I reckon, at least, for the same rea­sons the other pro­vi­sions of s377 were repealed — such as the pro­vi­sion for ‘mar­i­tal immu­nity’, for when a hus­band rapes a wife. Repug­nant, no?

I urge you, go to the site, sign the let­ter. Else we risk being cit­i­zens of the most irrel­e­vant back­wa­ter, and a really small one at that.

Thank you.

The Prime Min­is­ter
Mr. Lee Hsien Loong
Prime Minister’s Office
Orchard Road
Istana
Sin­ga­pore 238823

Sub­ject: Abo­li­tion OF Sec­tion 377A, Penal Code

Dear Prime Minister,

As a cit­i­zen of Sin­ga­pore, I write to appeal to your sense of fair­ness and equal­ity, to take the lead to move Par­lia­ment and your party on issues related to s377A, Penal Code. I strongly believe that it should be repealed, not just for the ben­e­fit of the gay com­mu­nity, but also for the good of all Sin­ga­pore­ans. I also firmly believe that the time to repeal s377A, Penal Code is now, not later.

The rea­sons why this repeal is so impor­tant are manifold.

1. Singapore’s Found­ing Prin­ci­ples.
2. Con­sti­tu­tional and Legal Rights.
3. Inter­na­tional Social Mores and Trends.
4. Domes­tic Social Mores and Trends.
5. Dam­age to the Gay Com­mu­nity.
6. Prag­ma­tism, Lead­er­ship and the Future.

1. Singapore’s Found­ing Prin­ci­ples
Sin­ga­pore was founded on the basis of jus­tice and equal­ity. This is reflected in our pledge. From the start, Sin­ga­pore as a nation has staunchly upheld mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, with diverse groups liv­ing together in har­mony by respect­ing each other’s dif­fer­ences. This has been the cor­ner­stone of our country’s suc­cess. Since then, these prin­ci­ples have been fur­ther strength­ened. For example:

- In 1966, a Con­sti­tu­tional Com­mis­sion was formed to study how the rights of minori­ties can be safe­guarded.
– The imple­men­ta­tion of the GRC in our elec­toral sys­tem ensures that racial minori­ties are ade­quately rep­re­sented.
– The Women’s Char­ter was amended to safe­guard women’s rights.

Leg­is­lat­ing that cer­tain sex­ual acts are legal for het­ero­sex­u­als but ille­gal for gay men is tan­ta­mount to our coun­try tak­ing an active step (for the first time) to dis­crim­i­nate against a minor­ity group. That goes against every­thing we, as Sin­ga­pore­ans, have been taught to believe in and hold dear.

2. Con­sti­tu­tional and Legal Rights
Sec­tion 377A con­tra­venes Singapore’s Con­sti­tu­tion which grants equal rights to treat­ment and pro­tec­tion for every­one. This law is unequiv­o­cally dis­crim­i­na­tory. We believe a gay man should have exactly the same rights as a straight man or woman.

We under­stand that there are ele­ments of our soci­ety that do not see being gay in a pos­i­tive light. They are enti­tled to their opin­ion. But their opin­ion should not infringe upon the rights of this – or any – group of Sin­ga­pore­ans. This holds true even if those who dis­ap­prove of gay peo­ple out­num­ber those who sup­port them. In fact, it is the respon­si­bil­ity of any demo­c­ra­t­i­cally elected gov­ern­ment to pro­tect minori­ties from the “tyranny of the majority”.

Sec­tion 377A vio­lates an individuals’s right to pri­vacy. Espe­cially since what we are talk­ing about is a choice between con­sent­ing adults and hurts no one.

Fur­ther­more, the government’s self-avowed com­pro­mise of hav­ing s377A on the books but not enforc­ing it will bring Singapore’s jus­tice sys­tem into dis­re­pute. The Coun­cil of the Law Soci­ety states in its report to the Min­istry Of Home Affairs dated March 30, 2007, that the law as it stands “can­not be jus­ti­fied”. The Coun­cil goes fur­ther to argue that the proper func­tion of crim­i­nal law “is to pro­tect oth­ers from harm by pun­ish­ing harm­ful con­duct. Pri­vate con­sen­sual homo­sex­ual con­duct between adults does not cause harm recog­nis­able by the crim­i­nal law. Thus, regard­less of one’s per­sonal view of the moral­ity or oth­er­wise of such con­duct, it should not be made a crim­i­nal offence”.

Sin­ga­pore has always taken pride in being a coun­try where the rule of law is trans­par­ent, fair and clear cut. This rep­u­ta­tion has served us well and con­tributed in no small way to our country’s suc­cess and should not be eroded by this aberration.

3. Inter­na­tional Trends
The courts of many major coun­tries have held the equiv­a­lent of s377A to be dis­crim­i­na­tory, an inva­sion of pri­vacy and uncon­sti­tu­tional. This is not only in Europe and Amer­ica. It includes the UN Human Rights Com­mit­tee, S, Africa and most recently Hong Kong. The leg­is­la­tures in UK, Hong Kong, Tai­wan, Japan, South Korea, the Philip­pines, Cam­bo­dia, Viet­nam, Indone­sia and even China have also passed laws decrim­i­nal­is­ing such acts.

Sin­ga­pore will be woe­fully out-of-step with the rest of the world should it move to retain this Vic­to­rian leg­is­la­tion only weeks after Newsweek magazine’s cover story pro­claimed that “the bat­tle for gay rights is gain­ing ground across the globe” and hailed the repeal of laws sim­i­lar to s377A across the globe as “a global civil-rights revolution”.

4. Domes­tic Trends
The atti­tude of Sin­ga­pore­ans have become much more accept­ing of alter­na­tive sex­u­al­ity. Between 2000 and 2005, the level of accep­tance has changed from 10% to more than 30%. The lat­est fig­ure is taken from Mark Cen­ite and B. Detenber’s arti­cle in the Inter­na­tional Jour­nal of Pub­lic Opin­ion Research. Fur­ther­more, the Straits Times online cen­sus in July 2007 indi­cated a tol­er­ance level of 55%.

Admit­tedly, dif­fer­ent pub­lic polls can often illus­trate con­trast­ing views and the sum of all these sta­tis­tics makes it dif­fi­cult to get a clear view of pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment. How­ever we believe that the law of our land does not exist to be pop­u­lar, but to be fair and just for all peo­ple. This is a belief we know is shared by many.

5. Dam­age to the Gay Community

If the cur­rent amend­ment bill suc­ceeds, the result­ing law will become a bit­ter sym­bol to many gay Sin­ga­porean men, young and old. It will hin­der greater under­stand­ing and inte­gra­tion of these peo­ple, who are often respon­si­ble, invalu­able and highly respected con­tribut­ing mem­bers of soci­ety. The only thing that makes these peo­ple dif­fer­ent from the major­ity of Sin­ga­pore­ans is that they are biologically-pre-disposed to love dif­fer­ently. It will be a slap in the face to their sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions and encour­age many more to leave our shores for more open-minded soci­eties. Singapore’s most valu­able resource is its cit­i­zens. We can­not afford to lose them.

S377A will also affect the sta­tus and moral cit­i­zen­ship of gay men in soci­ety. The gov­ern­ment has openly wel­comed gays and les­bians into the civil ser­vice. But this law will only dis­cour­age equal-treatment for gay employ­ees every­where and dimin­ish the moral stand­ing these men and have right­fully earned. We fear it will be a seed for fur­ther acts of discrimination.

Crim­i­nal­is­ing gay sex also impedes effec­tive safer-sex mes­sages being dis­sem­i­nated effec­tively to gay men and other men at risk of con­tract­ing HIV. There are numer­ous stud­ies which have con­cluded that HIV pre­ven­tion pro­grams in envi­ron­ments where gay sex is crim­i­nalised are resound­ingly inef­fec­tive. The fight against HIV/AIDS is an impor­tant issue which affects all Sin­ga­pore­ans. There should be no imped­i­ment to get­ting this life sav­ing infor­ma­tion out.

Brand­ing gays as out­laws will be destruc­tive to the self-worth of those indi­vid­u­als and could lead to an increased inci­dence of self-harm. Thought should also be given to gay youth who strug­gle deeply with this issue. This law would only add more trauma to what is already a very dif­fi­cult period in their lives.

6. Prag­ma­tism, Lead­er­ship and the Future
You and our gov­ern­ment have always shown a will­ing­ness to make tough prag­matic deci­sions for the best inter­ests of our coun­try. Deci­sions made with con­vic­tion, despite oppo­si­tion from var­i­ous inter­est groups, reli­gious organ­i­sa­tions and minorities.

In a recent address at NUS, you talked about this issue and said that “we will not reach con­sen­sus how­ever much we dis­cuss it. The views are pas­sion­ately held on both sides. The more you dis­cuss it, the angrier they become. The sub­ject will not go away.” Hav­ing admit­ted that we are at an impasse, it seems only log­i­cal that the way to move for­ward is for the gov­ern­ment to take a lead with the same con­vic­tion and lead­er­ship it has always shown.

We keep hear­ing that Sin­ga­pore soci­ety is ‘too con­ser­v­a­tive’ for this law to be repealed. This is not a strong enough rea­son to deny a group of Sin­ga­pore­ans equal rights. Far more con­ser­v­a­tive coun­tries have done away with laws like these and are none the worse for it. We are a mod­ern, demo­c­ra­tic and sec­u­lar state. While there will always be a place for con­ser­v­a­tive mores, we also need to pro­tect and nur­ture space for tol­er­ance and open-mindedness to flourish.

You have often said that your goal is to cre­ate a tol­er­ant and pro­gres­sive soci­ety for all Sin­ga­pore­ans. We urge you to now demon­strate your com­mit­ment to achieve this goal. Repeal­ing this biased law will be a sym­bolic mile­stone to sig­nal to fel­low Sin­ga­pore­ans and the world that this is the vision of Sin­ga­pore that we all share.

Yours faith­fully,

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