In 2007, Singapore repealed a law that criminalised consensual sex “against the order of nature with any man, woman or animals” (Ling 2010). While the move was intended to decriminalise forms of heterosexual sex, it also decriminalised queer sex. The government, however, retained Section 377A of the Penal Code that criminalises sex between men, under grounds that Singapore was mostly a “conservative society and the majority of its people still found homosexual behaviour unacceptable” (Ling 2010). Singapore’s judiciary has retained 377A and rejected claims of its unconstitutionality ( Tan Eng Hong v Attorney-General 2012 Lim Meng Suang v Attorney-General 2015). Voices in favour and against the criminalisation of homosexuality in Singapore are strident. This heated debate led to an uncommon yet ambivalent pronouncement by Prime Minister Loong, who argued that while Section 377A will be retained, it will not be enforced ( Straits Times 2007).
With several nations decriminalising same-sex intercourse in the past decade and some also legalising same-sex marriage, it is time for Singapore to follow suit.
