| The Advocate
December 10, 2004
Singapore police ban gay Christmas party
A planned Christmas party organized by Asia's most popular
gay Web site is "against the moral values"
of most Singaporeans, police said Thursday as they slapped
a ban on the festivities," Agence France-Presse
reports. Police also indicated the future of the Nation
Party, one of Asia's biggest annual gay and lesbian
festivals, held every August, was in jeopardy after
complaints about public displays of affection at the
last event. "Police's assessment is that the event
is likely to be organized as a gay party, which is contrary
to public interest in general," a police statement
said in regards to the proposed Christmas Day party,
called SnowBall.04. "Singapore is still, by and
large, a conservative and traditional society. Hence,
the police cannot approve any application for an event
which goes against the moral values of a large majority
of Singaporeans."
Jungle Media, the Singapore subsidiary of Hong Kong-based
Fridae.com, had applied to police for a license to organize
SnowBall.04 to run all night at a disused nightclub
from 9 p.m. on December 25, according to AFP. The police
decision was a shock to Fridae.com, which had organized
similar Christmas parties in 2002 and 2003 as well as
the increasingly successful Nation parties, which have
been held since 2001. "In the four years that we
have been working with the police...not once have we
been made aware that there was anything illegal about
our events," Fridae.com's chief executive, Stuart
Koe, said in a statement.
But the police said it had banned SnowBall.04 because
Jungle Media had previously given assurances the Nation
events would not be organized as gay parties. The police
statement said this year's Nation was advertised on
Fridae.com, and listed a long range of complaints that
included revellers cross-dressing and "openly kissing
and intimately touching each other." "Future
applications for events of similar nature will be closely
scrutinized," the statement said.
Koe said Fridae.com had already lodged an appeal for
the ban on SnowBall.04 to be overturned. "We are
hoping that the Singapore gay community will be allowed
to conduct itself like every other citizen of Singapore,"
Koe told AFP. "It is ironic that gays are allowed
to work in the civil service but not allowed to have
our own private celebrations."
Gay sex is still outlawed in Singapore, but the government
allows gay-friendly facilities and shops to operate
in the city-state and for gays to work in the public
service. The police ban comes after Singapore's senior
minister of state for health, Balaji Sadasivan, said
last month that gay men's unsafe sexual practices were
the biggest reason for an "alarming AIDS epidemic"
in the city-state.
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