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Singapore Unmoved by India Ruling?By Julie Bolcer
Law minister K. Shanmugam said Singapore was unlikely to decriminalize gay sex because most of the public does not support such a move. "If the majority of our population is against homosexuality, then it's not for the government to say we are going to force something against the wishes of the people," he was reported as saying in the Today newspaper. However, Shanmugam said that courts in Singapore are free to interpret the law in such a way as to permit gay sex, as the court in India did. "We won't change the law, but how that is interpreted is up to the courts," he said. "It is not our position to tell the courts what to do." Singapore’s colonial-era ban on gay sex calls for punishing offenders with up to two years in jail, but it is rarely enforced. Last Thursday the Delhi high court struck down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which contains a 148-year-old British colonial-era law that made gay sex punishable by up to 10 years in prison. While the decision applies explicitly only to New Delhi, it sets a precedent that other state courts will find difficult to contradict, law experts say. The ruling represents a major step forward in deeply conservative India.
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| Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 January 2010 14:24 |
