| Reuters
August 8, 2004
Asian Gays Party in Singapore Despite
Tough Laws
By Fayen Wong
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Some 6,000 people turned out for
the start of a three-day gay and lesbian festival in
Singapore -- where homosexual acts are still illegal
-- making it Asia's largest gay event, its organizers
said Sunday.
"Nation.04" -- a festival of international
DJs, podium dancers, pumping music and muscular boys
stripping off their tops on packed dance floors -- has
increased in size every year since it was launched four
years ago, said organizer Stuart Koe.
"Last night's turnout was really higher than expected,"
he told Reuters. About half the 6,000 were foreigners
from other Asian countries and the United States, said
Koe, who runs Fridae.com, Singapore's main gay and lesbian
Web site.
The size made it Asia's largest known gay festival,
he said.
The festival is at odds with Singapore's image as a
strait-laced city state, but the government has turned
a blind eye to the growth of an entertainment industry
catering for homosexuals, quietly acknowledging the
potential of the "pink dollar." Singapore
still has a law that criminalizes consensual homosexual
acts -- Penal Code section 377A states that acts of
"gross indecency" between two men are punishable
by up to two years in jail.
But in January the government said it planned to review
its sex laws, and would probably decriminalize oral
sex -- but only between men and women.
Nation.04 kicked off with a "Make Love Not War"
party on Saturday, a politically loaded theme in a country
where organized protests are illegal without a permit
and where the government staunchly supported the U.S.-led
war on Iraq.
"Singapore is making very big moves in liberalizing.
People here feel a lot more empowered than before to
take risks and to speak their minds," gay rights
activist Alex Au told Reuters.
Most Singaporeans expect the gradual relaxation in
social controls and official attitudes toward alternative
lifestyles to continue, though relations between the
gay community and the state remain awkward, partly because
of the sex and censorship laws.
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