'I thought I would die before this moment': one man's fight against Singpapore's gay sex law


Tan Eng Hong's voice wavers as he remembers his 12-year struggle against Section 377A, a law that criminalizes sex between men in Singapore. When he heard the announcement this month that the law would finally be repealed, he felt relief. "I thought I would die before I could hear this", he says. Thank god, that he is alive to witness such a landmark moment.

It was in 2010 that Tan Eng Hong experienced one of the most difficult episodes in his life. He was arrested by police for having oral sex with a consenting adult man in a locked toilet cubicle at a mall in downtown Singapore after staff at a nearby restaurant reportedly called police. 

Tan, then 47, was handcuffed, his bags were searched, and he was taken into custody. "My whole body was paralyzed. I was wondering how I was going to carry on," he says.

Opinion

This article is related to the Sharing the planet topic because as you can read above, it talks about how Tan did not have his rights as a gay person.

After reading the whole article, one of the first things that came to my mind was how it is possible that in some countries it is still illegal to be gay. I do not get it how is possible. I also do not understand why this kind of law was created in the first place. Shouldn't you be able to love whoever you want? And in this case, how can a law that was created during the colonial era is still in use? 

Luckily, there have been huge advances on this topic during the last few years, but there is some much to do. In Singapore, however, when its prime minister announced Section 377A would be repealed, he also said that the government had no intentions of allowing equal marriage, and that is something that has to be changed also.  









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