One effort to support the community is made by "Pink Dot Sg" which is a yearly festival for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Last year’s event was attended by over 15'000 people. In addition to this, the magazine “Element” published its second issue this summer. It’s the first national gay lifestyle magazine. Due to the law against gays its only accessible online, on a US server.
Even though the issue of homosexuality has been discussed for several years, same-sex relationships are a taboo and are still not really accepted by most of the Singaporean population. We found some possible explanations for this disapproval and we’re going to take a closer look at two of them and compare Singapore’s mentality to the one in Switzerland.
What we have to say about this:
Our first point is the history of Singapore. It all began with the colonialisation by Britain. Since the introduction of British rules in 1819, Singapore’s laws didn’t change much until October 2007. Although the people in the UK now accept homosexuality, the criminalization of same-sex relationships is still found in many older colonies such as Singapore. Before 2007, homosexuality or other forms of sexual behavior that didn’t serve the purpose of building a family unit, were punished with imprisonment for life. After reviewing this section of the law in 2007, oral and anal sex were legalized for heterosexuals and female homosexuals only, meaning that homosexual relationships between males are still not legal.
The other aspect we thought which has a strong influence on this matter is religion. One-third of Singaporeans are Buddhists, which have the largest following. Buddhism teaches and expects a certain behavior from you, which is embodied in what is called “the Five Precepts”. The third of these Percepts is about sexual behavior, which forbids relationships between people of the same sex. This means as a gay person being sexually active means breaking the third Percept.
In Switzerland homosexual acts are legal since 1942 and since 2000 you’re punished for discriminating a person because of his or her sexual orientation. In School we learn the main things about sex, such as how to protect ourselves from sexually transmitted infections and diseases (for example Aids).
Sexual education in Singapore teaches the kids that pre-marital sex is not desirable because of the possible risks. Teachers promote abstinence before marriage.
In general, sex has always been a very sensitive issue in Singapore, which people don’t like to speak about and it is very rarely mentioned in public. Of course there are differences between the different communities and its people and everyone has his or her personal opinion on it. Singapore even has had a reputation of being conservative and serious for a long time. A study in the year 2003 accomplished by Durex, a condom company, showed that Singaporeans have the least amount of sex. Thus it doesn’t come as a surprise that that walking around naked in your own home is illegal in Singapore. But now times are slowly changing for the better. Although homosexuality is still illegal, lots of Singaporean gay clubs are becoming more popular and raising support for same-sex rights in Singapore.
As you can see, things are still quite controversial in terms of homosexuality in Singapore, whereas in other countries it is not much of a problem anymore. However, we see the possibility of conditions becoming better for homosexuals in Singapore, although there will always be people against it. Unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about that.(Sa, Al, Ma, Ju)
In this text there we're some good links to our environment. You explained your points good and we have the same opinion. It helps to understand that gay people aren't accepted everywhere the same way. We think the world should show more acceptance for homo-sexual people and understand that they were born that way.
ReplyDeleteLB, OM