Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced on Sunday that the country would repeal a colonial-era law criminalising gay sex, though he maintained that the government would continue to “uphold” marriage as being between a man and a woman.
‘The government will repeal (the law) and decriminalise sex between men. I believe this is the right thing to do, and something that most Singaporeans will now accept,’ he said in a major policy speech.
Lee added that attitudes have shifted in the 15 years since the government decided that the law would remain.
Gay people ‘are now better accepted’ locally, especially among younger Singaporeans, he said.
The repeal ‘will bring the law into line with current social mores, and I hope, provide some relief to gay Singaporeans’, Lee said.
Inherited from the British colonial era, section 377A of Singapore’s penal code penalises sex between men with up to two years in jail.
Gay rights campaigners have long said the law runs afoul of the affluent city-state’s increasingly modern and vibrant culture, and had mounted two unsuccessful legal challenges.
However, repealing section 377A stops short of full equality in terms of marriage.
Lee said that the government recognised that ‘most Singaporeans do not want the repeal to trigger a drastic shift in our societal norms across the board’, including how marriage is defined and how it is taught in schools.
‘We will uphold and safeguard the institution of marriage’, he said, stressing that under the law ‘only marriages between one man and one woman are recognised in Singapore’.