please login to add to this item

Hit US TV show fined £5,500 for 'normalising gay lifestyle'

Singapore says no to gay families on TV

Saturday, 26 April 2008

The UK's Section 28 may be dead... for now... but not everywhere has it so easy. The TV regulator in Singapore yesterday fined a local channel £5,500 for airing a US home improvement show that was seen to be "normalizing and promoting a gay lifestyle", breaching Singapore's free-to-air TV code. The MDA went on to argue that the programme provided "acknowledgement of a gay couple and their baby as a family unit in a way which normalises their gay lifestyle and unconventional family setup."

The full report makes for pretty painful reading:
www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/thenewsdesk.aspx?sid=869

On the same day as this announcement was made, a segment of the Ellen DeGeneres Show was censored for similar reasons... Watch and decide yourself if you think Singapore needed to be protected from seeing this message:

ellen.warnerbros.com/2008/02/a_tragedy_that_should_never_ha.php

As preparations for the UK's Pride 2008 festivals step up a gear perhaps it takes events like this to remind us how relatively easy we have it. In Singapore, as in many other countries, homosexuality is still against the law.

Four men were arrested inside a gay sauna in Singapore in 2005 and charged with "riotous, disorderly or indecent behavior". But perhaps these men weren't shamed for no reason. In that same year the country's first LGBT pride festival took place, and a gay scene is at last starting to take shape in the city.

We may consider these laws as outdated and backwards but, perhaps ironically, the very Singapore laws that outlaw man-on-man sex are the remains of old British sodomy laws - kept in place by a minority of hardcore conservatives and religious fundamentalists in powerful positions.

We thought it might be a nice gesture for us to communicate a simple message of support from the country that gave them their archaic homophobic laws to LGBT people in Singapore and all over the world who face daily homophobia and persecution. This article will appear as a feature on the newly-launched-for-this-purpose REALSingapore.net - and so will your comments if you choose to post them below.

www.mdaonline.mda.gov.sg/
www.aetv.com/findanddesign/