This essay discusses five aspects of such discrimination β law, military, housing, education, and health β and explain how gays attempt to retain agency, dignity, and autonomy in the face of these respective constraints. Activists have tried thrice in the past decade to repeal the law without success. The first time was in October when Nominated Member of Parliament Siew Kum Hong put forth a petition to amend the law through parliamentary action.
A counter-petition and rebuttals from other members of parliament ensued. Consequently, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong declared for the status quo to remain on the grounds of a heteronormative society and the assurance not to actively enforce the law. At least twice in , culprits accused under Section A given amended charges. This time, one of the criminals, Tan Eng Hong, decided to raise a constitutional challenge that triggered a furore in traditional and social media.
These public and private debates were sustained by a subsequent challenge from a gay couple, Lim Meng Suang and Kenneth Chee Mun-Leon in November They revealed the multifaceted nature of being gay: like everyone else, some gay men have sex in public, and some in private; some are monogamous and others promiscuous; some are rich and powerful, but many are poor and powerless.
More than anything else, they revealed both how banal and typical the lives of gay men are. These national events aggrandize the influence of gay people.
In fact, gay men bear little hope of the law changing towards their favor. Unless they are themselves lawyers, the legal jargon and cost of proceedings are major obstacles. As for garnering social acceptance, long-term sociological surveys over the past decade continue to affirm the conservative tenor of the population. One such survey argues that conformity to norms, intrinsic religiosity, Western orientation, interpersonal contact, mediated exposure and perception of homosexuality as a choice are all factors salient in forming and changing attitudes towards gays and lesbians.
