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Singapore will decriminalize sex between men, prime minister says
- pydry 4y agoI suspect they never did care about this issue at all but they're trying to walk a tightrope trying not to piss off foreign investors (IIRC Goldman Sachs partners had something to say about this law) and the core PAP voter base, which tends to skew heavily in favor of "conservative/family values" and against this. Then again, times may be a a-changing.
- linuxdude314 4y agoI like how he literally has no need to do this, and in spite of the concerns you mentioned is doing it anyway. I lived in Singapore for 3 months, and as a gay man never felt unwelcome or unsafe. I benefit from other privileges that probably affected my experience, but Singapore is a pretty harmonious place. Times are changing.
- ixfo 4y agoThere were some legal challenges likely for the relevant statute, and doing it this way is much more in keeping with Singapore's approach to keeping politics "in politics". It's carefully coordinated and done in a way that most conservatives can't really attack. In line with .sg's usual approach to doing things carefully and slowly in a controlled manner.
- bobthepanda 4y agoThe issue has always been “what if.” Singapore is no stranger to selective enforcement and using the legal system against critics (often via things like defamation lawsuits). This particular law was never weaponized in that way, but there was never anything stopping them from doing so.
- pydry 4y agoGood for you. I had gay friends who did not feel safe when I lived there - not exactly from 377A (the policy has been unenforced for years) but maybe losing their positions if it came out. They didnt go to pink dot because they were afraid of appearing in any photos.
- yomkippur 4y agoWhat's funny about LGBTQ friendly Western countries is that the risk of assault is higher than places that aren't LGBTQ friendly in Singapore or Japan. So you can have on the surface level, diversity but offer no safeguards or protection against assault or even murder in the case of transwoman in the West. Thailand? No open LGBTQ legislation or politics like you have in the West but it remains the most trans friendly country in the world.
- mikkelam 4y agoDo you have any sources for those exorbitant claims?
- HeyZuess 4y agoI lived in Singapore for a few years, I moved there from a western country. I found that even given the laws at that stage that the homosexual community was fairly open, and accepted. The majority of my wife's friends are gay, and open about it. Singapore is a nice and safe countries but there are definitely trade offs.
- jhanschoo 4y agoNote that citizens may feel more acutely about systemic discrimination against homosexuals. A large factor is subsidized public housing, which a large fraction of the citizens live in. Being married and having children gives you priority for public housing, but only heterosexual unions being recognized as marriage excludes families of homosexual partners from receiving the same support.
- yomkippur 4y agoWhy would Goldman Sachs care about this? It's funny to me because same sex relationships were never an issue until the arrival of Judeo-Christian values via colonialism from the West. Japan also had a long history of same sex culture, as did Korea and many other countries. Then those cultures that imposed this discrimination turn around to poke fun at Islam for burqini or burka when as a secular outsider, its no different than Judeo/Christian/Abrahamic religious attitude and persecution of same sex relationship.
- dan-robertson 4y agoGoldman Sachs is a stand-in for the kinds of international companies that might have offices in Singapore. Being an international finance hub is valuable to singapore and those companies will often employ lots of western expats in the country. Those expats are likely going to care about this and they will make their employers care somewhat about this too.
- jrockway 4y agoNew York and London are also international financial hubs, and don't seem to have problems with people being gay. I'm not sure we can blame investment banks for this one. For example, sure it's marketing copy, but I don't think a company that wanted to make laws against being gay would bother with this: https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-commitments/diversity-and-inclusion/ https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-commitments/diversity-and-i...
- pessimizer 4y agoThe people you're replying to are saying that companies like Goldman would greatly prefer for gay sex to be legal.
- jrockway 4y agoI see. I was so confused by the original comment that I guess my brain stopped working.
- fatcat500 4y ago> Goldman Sachs partners had something to say about this law Don't you think it's absurd that an investment bank has influence over a country's social policy? For all the cheerleading we do about democracy, we also don't seem to care that behemoth US companies exert their influence over other countries, thus diluting the value of a citizen's vote. No one is concerned that there is no wall of separation between business and politics.
- tpmx 4y agoFor all the cheerleading we do about democracy Singapore isn't really that democratic though. Somehow it kind of works for them. https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore/freedom-world/2022 https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore/freedom-world/202... Singapore’s parliamentary political system has been dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and the family of current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong since 1959. The electoral and legal framework that the PAP has constructed allows for some political pluralism, but it constrains the growth of opposition parties and limits freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.
- nullhack 4y agoYes, I'm always curious who "we" and "our" means in these cases... As a tangent, the USA is a Democratic Republic, and yet all I ever hear is threats to "Our Democracy" I never hear about threats to "Our Republic"
- SllX 4y agoThat’s because they’re the same thing in different languages. I learned the same propaganda as you; the distinction taught to us was basically made up.
- nullhack 4y agoPer google search ".. etymology" demos: the people; -cratia: power, rule; Greek. res: entity, concern; publicus: of the people, public; Latin "Rule of the People" and "Concern of the People" sound SIMILAR, sure! Just because a mechanic is concerned for your car, does not mean he owns it... I think it's lazy of you to call this dichotomy "propoganda" without offering any definitions or etymology.
- throwawaymkpx 4y ago
- Animats 4y ago
- DominikPeters 4y agoApparently this comes in a package with a constitutional amendment that enshrines marriage as exclusively opposite-sex, which will make legalising same-sex marriage harder down the road. https://twitter.com/kixes/status/1561334527808929793 https://twitter.com/kixes/status/1561334527808929793
- toomuchtodo 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)
- cato_the_elder 4y agoWell, that's right thing to do IMO. It may be true that what happens in people's bedrooms is not government's business, but it's also true that the state has no obligation to subsidize particular lifestyles, especially when it's tantamount to waging a culture war on it's population.
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoWhat on earth?
- mikojan 4y agoExcept when the state is subsidizing heterosexual lifestyles to wage a culture war on its population
- cato_the_elder 4y ago
- ItMayWorkTryIt 4y agoAgreed, we should also make sure to ban interracial marriage since same culture marriages are universal among all the countries in the world. I don't know of any thriving culture which frowns on same race marriage. (Sarcasm if it wasn't obvious)
- gurumeditations 4y ago“Gay sex” bans being essentially bans on gay love, because sex is a crucial part of any loving relationship. Two people in love have sex. Criminalize the sex, make a romantic relationship difficult enough to be impossible. Erase gay people from existence. Standard straight homophobia playbook.
- saagarjha 4y ago> sex is a crucial part of any loving relationship s/any/most/
- jimmygrapes 4y agoThis is a fundamental misunderstanding of what love is. I'm sure there are plenty parents, siblings, etc. that would be quite appalled to learn from you that they can't experience love without having sex with each other.
- khazhoux 4y agoCheap shot. It's clear that the comment was about love/relationship between partners.
- pertymcpert 4y agoEros.
- akomtu 4y ago
- Barrin92 4y agoSex is one way to express intimacy, which can be a sign of, but is not the same thing as love. Quite trivially observable in any loving relationship between people who can't physically have sex because say a partner is disabled. Or just between couples who have been married for 50 years. Probably not as active in the bedroom compared to their 20s, but not less in love (probably the opposite). Conflating sex and physical attraction with love is a very modern phenomenon, and I think may have something to do with the instability of relationships.
- anticristi 4y agoWhat about sex between women? Will that stay illegal?
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
- notahacker 4y agoThat wasn't illegal.
- dimensionc132 4y ago
- sampling 4y agoYou would be naive to believe that gay sex has not been happening just because it's illegal.
- dimensionc132 4y agoI said get ready for the surge in monkeypox in Singapore, now that the Gov has sanctioned anal penetration
- nullhack 4y agoBigot! What people do in the privacy of their homes only concerns the homeowneer, Gary, Tom, Dick, Harry, 5 Jane Does, and the cutting edge of Smallpox Epidemiology research!!