This Alien Legacy

Yet relying on a “preferred social norm” actually undermined the original
foundations of the law, based on belief that “sodomy” was “against the order of
nature,” not just the order of a particular society. And—most importantly—foreign
“moral imperialism in matters of fundamental morality” was exactly what had
brought the law to Singapore in the first place.
The Singapore story tears off the mask. It shows that Section 377’s central focus,
despite the heterosexual acts it had always punished, lay in eliminating homosexual
conduct. It also shows, though, how tenuous the case for that purpose had become.
“Nature” was no longer a credible justification. The mores of particular societies
were all that was left. As a Malaysian court had declared in 1979 (addressing a wife’s
claim that her husband had sexual relations with other men): “Such despicable
conduct though permitted among some Westerners should not be allowed to corrupt
the community‘s way of life.” 142
Of course, the governments of Singapore and Malaysia, both politically repressive
states, had only limited interest in listening to that “community,” or actually testing
its values. 143 Elsewhere too, though, invoking a vague set of “national” or “cultural”
norms became the main defense of the colonial-era sodomy laws. To the colonizers,
laws on sex were needed because the “native” was corrupt and an enticement to
moral corruption. Now it was the West that threatened to corrupt indigenous
standards.
A 1999 verdict from Zambia indicates how sour and weak the argument around
“nature” had turned, and at the same time how unconvincing the appeal to popular
beliefs could be. The judge in a local court, faced with charges that a man had oral
sex with other men, approached them through a muddle of theology and anatomy:
142
Lim Hui Lian v. CM Huddlestan , 1979 Malayan Law Journal, Vol. 2, p. 134.
143
The only statistical study regularly cited in the debate showed a high level of negative feeling among Singaporeans about
homosexuality per se, but did not ask whether they wanted those opinions translated into criminal penalties: Benjamin H.
Detenber, Mark Cenite, Moses K. Y. Ku, Carol P. L. Ong, Hazel Y. Tong, and Magdalene L. H. Yeow, “Singaporeans’ Attitudes
toward Lesbians and Gay Men and their Tolerance of Media Portrayals of Homosexuality,” International Journal of Public
Opinion Research , Vol. 19, No. 3 (July 2007), pp. 367-79. See also Kenneth Chan, “Gay Sexuality in Singaporean Chinese
Popular Culture: Where Have All the Boys Gone?” China Information, Vol. 22, No. 2 (July 2008), pp. 305 -29.
This Alien Legacy
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