Singapore, Repeal377A NOW!

Singapore has banned the sale of an Xbox video game that features an intimate scene between two female characters, a statement received Thursday said.

The “Mass Effect” game, a futuristic space adventure, contains “a scene of lesbian intimacy… as such the game has been disallowed,” the deputy director of the Board of Film Censors said in the statement.
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As Singapore attempts to become a global city like London and New York, there will be more diversity, more debates and more issues that generate plenty of emotion.

But if the recent debate on Section 377A is anything to go by, Singaporeans have a lot to learn about how to persuade others of the rightness of their cause.
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Irate gamers criticized Singapore’s censors Thursday for banning a highly anticipated space adventure game containing a sex scene between a human woman and a female alien.

The game, called Mass Effect, is the first from Microsoft to be prohibited in the city-state. It was to be launched next week.

Microsoft submitted Mass Effect last week to the Media Development Authority (MDA) as part of the routine procedure to get games distributed.

‘We respect MDA’s decision,’ a company spokesman said.

The scene triggering the ban depicts the human-alien duo in suggestive positions and ends with the alien saying, ‘By the Gods, that was incredible, Commander.’

Homosexual scenes in other media such as films are rarely allowed and shown only if they do not promote a gay lifestyle.
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PEOPLE who wrote to newspapers 30 years ago used to be known as ‘Angry’, ‘Anxious’ and even ‘Disturbed’.

Now, however, they come out into the open and sign off with their real names - Denis Distant, Leong Sze Hian and, once upon a time, Vivian Balakrishnan.

Some may see this willingness to be named as a maturing of public debate. But have we really grown up?

Witness the anonymous postings on the Internet on the debate on section 377A. Both homosexuals and those for retention of the section dealt low blows at their opponents.
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It looked innocuous enough - A brown envelope with a single, printed A4 sheet inside.

But the contents of this letter were hateful enough - indeed, the words “hate”, “hatred” and “hurt” were repeated no less than 10 times - that its recipient made a police report on Monday night. It is the second police report Nominated Member of Parliament Thio Li-ann has made in three months.

But while she has said she will not sue her first antagonist, poet Alfian Sa’at, who sent her a four-sentence insulting email, the situation is different now.
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IF THE police, on a tip-off, raid a flat for suspected drug offenders and discover no drugs but gay sex instead, would they prosecute?

NUS law don Michael Hor says this scenario could arise from the government’s stand that it would not be proactive in enforcing S377A.

‘Does the non-enforcement policy cover this, for it might be argued that the police were not ‘pro-active’?’ he wrote in a new book of essays launched on Tuesday.
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In this weekly blog on journalism in Singapore, contributor Cherian George writes:
As someone who straddles the worlds of Singaporean journalism and academia but has never felt totally at ease in either, I have to say that, today, I am prouder to call myself a journalist than an academic. Singapore is not known for its investigative journalism; one international ranking places our press in the same league as Third World dictatorships. On the other hand, our universities do Singapore proud: while some of the international rankings are suspect, there are certainly pockets of excellence on Singapore’s campuses.

This week, both vocations were tested. Singapore society needed the best from them, to guide it through the extraordinarily difficult and contentious 377A debate. Although the bean counters in both journalism and academia tend increasingly to apply irrelevant key performance indicators, pressmen and professors in the end share the same social purpose: to contribute to the world of ideas and help society to deal with its problems wisely and rationally.
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In his weekly ‘Thinking Aloud’ column, Janadas Devan writes in response to Thio Li-Ann’s Two Tribes Go To (Cultural) War parliamentary speech which graphically calls for the retention of section 377A.

Excerpt from Thinking Aloud, October 27:
We silly fellows had also misunderstood the nature of secularism. We had thought it meant separation of religion from the state, politics and public policy. We were wrong. As Prof Thio explained trenchantly in her ‘culture war’ speech: ‘Religious views are part of our common morality. We separate ‘religion’ from ‘politics’ but not ‘religion’ from ‘public policy’ (emphasis mine).

I never knew that! I had always assumed that it was necessary to separate religion from politics as well as public policy, for it was impossible to separate public policy from politics, and both from the state. But it turns out my assumption was baseless.

Jawaharlal Nehru, a Brahmin who insisted on untouchability being banned in the Indian Constitution despite the opposition of many caste Hindus, simply did not understand a thing about secularism. Bishop Desmond Tutu, a Methodist who insisted that discrimination against homosexuals be prohibited in the South African Constitution, was similarly clueless. And all those Enlightenment chaps in powdered wigs who insisted on the separation of church and state in the United States - in part, because there was no ‘common morality’ among religions - well, silly fellows, they knew nothing.
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Straits Times: ‘Why this gay is for keeping Section 377A’
Mr Goh Kim Soon, in his letter, reveals that he is a gay Singaporean who believes that “keeping Section 377A would maintain the social status quo and harmony” of the nation. He explains that Singapore is a good place for gay men to live as long as they understand “the social contract involved” and respect the wishes of the mainstream. He feels that “aggressive promotion or campaigning for gay rights is counter-productive”.
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Straits Times: ‘Discrimination enshrined in law’
Wong Suan Yin writes that the decision not to repeal s377A was “a sad day for Singapore” as a double standard now exists for all people before the law thus making a “mockery of the Pledge we learnt from young”. He says that the debate has “exposed the hypocrisy of those who urged the retention of Section 377A” since this group should have lobbied to maintain the Penal Code outlawing “unnatural acts” for all individuals instead of making it “perfectly fine for heterosexuals but still a crime for homosexuals”.
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ONE thing is for sure. The Parliamentary debate on Section 377A, which makes sex between homosexuals a crime, is not the end of the story. The issue will come up for public airing again when morality is confronted with money.

The PM’s speech, which tried to strike a nice balance between allowing gays space and appeasing the religious and conservative groups that this space will be managed, told something else about policy making.
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