People Like Us calls on the government of Singapore to recogise the significance of the judgement issued by the Delhi High Court on 2 July 2009, reading down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, thus decriminalising homosexual acts between consenting persons aged 18 and above, and to do the honourable thing immediately - to repeal Section 377A of Singapore’s Penal Code.

This Singapore law likewise criminalises homosexual acts and similarly suffers from the defects that the Delhi High Court found in India’s law.

The Court noted that “there is almost unanimous medical and psychiatric opinion that homosexuality is not a disease or a disorder and is just another expression of human sexuality.” This position
echoes the statement by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament, 23 October 2007, when he said: “there is growing scientific evidence that sexual orientation is something which is substantially inborn. I know that some will strongly disagree with this, but the evidence is accumulating.”

But whereas our government then chose to adopt the position that “because there are still very different views amongst Singaporeans on whether homosexuality is acceptable or morally right,” to quote from the same speech by Mr Lee again, so Singapore will continue to criminalise homosexual acts, the Delhi High Court found that “popular morality or public disapproval of certain acts is not a valid justification for restriction of the fundamental rights.

“Popular morality,” the court explained, “is based on shifting and subjecting notions of right and wrong.”

Reiterating, the Delhi bench said, the State should not “permit statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular misconceptions of who the LGBTS are. It cannot be forgotten that
discrimination is anti-thesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster the dignity of every individual.”

It is not wrong to say that by and large, there have been, in Singapore, no prosecutions for consensual homosexual relations between adults in the last decade or so, but gay men have been
harassed by arrest and threatened prosecutions. More importantly, there are wide and negative repercussions of keeping the law on the books, producing as it does, an entire climate of prejudice and neglect.

As the Delhi High Court noted, a law such as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code,”has the effect of viewing all gay men as criminals. When everything associated with homosexuality is treated as bent, queer, repugnant, the whole gay and lesbian community is marked with deviance and perversity. They are subject to extensive prejudice because what they are or what they are perceived to be, not because of what they do. The result is that a significant group of the population is, because of its sexual non-conformity, persecuted, marginalised and turned in on itself.”

Section 377A of Singapore’s Penal Code has the same effect, and subjects lesbian and gay people in Singapore to unwarranted discrimination.

Recognition of the impact of such laws on gay people is gathering speed worldwide. As the Court noted, “There is a growing jurisprudence and other law related practice that identifies a significant
appplication of human rights law with regard to people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”

Singapore prides itself as an inclusive society where the rule of law stands strong. Inclusiveness in today’s age must mean full participation and dignity for gay people. Section 377A is an abhorrent
obstacle to this. The rule of law must mean respect for the legal protection for the equality and the personal liberty and privacy of gay people, and once again Section 377A is an abhorrent negation of
this. We cannot credibly make claims to inclusiveness and the rule of law if Singapore continues to keep Section 377A when the world is moving far ahead of us.

We urge the government to act immediately in repealing Section 377A in the greater interest of Singapore.