Singapore gays hold first Pride

[ccharles000]

(Singapore) The gay community in tightly controlled Singapore held its first-ever rally Saturday, taking advantage of looser laws on public gatherings to call for equality.

About 2,500 participants wore pink clothing, played music and sang songs at a park known as Speaker’s Corner, according to the group Pink Dot, which represents Singapore’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents.

“This is a great opportunity for us to make our pitch for the equal treatment of the LGBT community in Singapore,” said Roy Tan, a Pink Dot spokesman.

Singapore’s government has become more tolerant toward gays and lesbians in recent years, but sodomy is still illegal, Tan said.

Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng told the state-owned New Paper on Friday that gay people “have a place in our society” but warned they must “not assert themselves stridently as gay groups do in the West.”

The government eased a ban on public demonstrations last year, encouraging Singaporeans to air grievances at Speaker’s Corner as long as they don’t discuss race, language or religion. The government says public discussion of those subjects could inflame passions and create instability in the multi-ethnic city-state.

http://www.365gay.com/news/singapore-gays-hold-first-pride/

[Kolesar]

1. Singapore is an autocracy that has fined the WSJ for reporting negative stories about the government

The government is a "one party" tyranny run by a father and son in the Lee family. The Singapore Democratic Party has been fined by the government and they took all of their funds last year--about a half a million dollars. The people in that country are too meek to object.