Singapore gay sex law punishes men, not women

A Singapore lawyer, Mr.  M.  Ravi, is challenging a law which criminalizes gay sex between men, arguing that Section 377A violates the constitutional rights of homosexual men.

Women?  Strangely, in Singapore, sex acts between lesbians is legal.

This is Mr.  Ravi’s third attempt after similar appeals failed earlier this year.

He is pegging his bid to a case he handled – that of a Mr.  Tan, 48, who was initially charged under 377A with performing fellatio on another man in a public toilet at CityLink Mall in March of last year.

When Mr Ravi filed a constitutional challenge then, Attorney-General’s Chambers cleverly replaced the charge with the lesser one of committing an obscene act in public.

Tan was convicted under that law and fined $3,000, as was his partner, a Mr.  Chin, 41.  Tan was then unemployed, and Chin, an operations clerk.  Apparently since Chin was on the receiving end, so to speak, he committed no crime.

Yesterday, Mr Ravi asked the Court of Appeal to overturn Justice Lai’s decision and allow the constitutional challenge to be heard.

He said that although Parliament has said gay men will not be prosecuted for sexual acts in private, the very existence of the law means they face the possible threat of prosecution.

He added that it is discriminatory that gay sex in public places can bring a jail term of up to two years, while sex between a man and a woman in public can result in only a three-month jail term at most—a mere slap on the but.

Lesbians can run wild and do whatever they want, making Singapore a Lesbian Heaven.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Aedit Abdullah, arguing that there was no basis for the constitutional challenge, as Tan had already pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of committing an obscene act in a public place.

Since Tan was not prosecuted under 377A, Mr Ravi had no standing to argue that his client’s constitutional rights were being violated by that particular law, the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor told Appeal Judges Andrew Phang, V.  K.  Rajah, and embarrassed red-faced Justice Judith Prakash, however, that there could be no “binding promise” that gay men would not be prosecuted under 377A.

The public gallery was packed with people, well-wishers, gays, lesbians, and a slew of lawyers.

Naturally, for legal decorum, the males in the public gallery were kept in check by the heroic efforts of  a squad of court bailiffs.

There was no report of lesbian activity in the public gallery, nor could there have been—the law does not apply to women.