Posted on 07/20/2007 3:22:06 AM PDT by monomaniac
SINGAPORE, July 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Unable to find a "gay bar" or display nudity in an upcoming performance of Shakespeare's "King Lear", British actor Ian McKellen has now called upon Singapore's government to overturn laws against homosexuality.
McKellen, 68, is known to millions around the world for his roles as "Gandalf" the wizard in the "Lord of the Rings" and for his role as the evil villain and mastermind "Magneto" in the "X-Men" Trilogy and has used his star-power to promote homosexual issues.
"Coming to Singapore where unfortunately you've still got those dreadful laws that we British left behind... it's about time Singapore grew up, I think, and realized that gay people are here to stay," McKellen said in an interview with Class 95 radio station, a member of the state-run MediaCorp.
Singapore's Penal Code Section 377A prohibits homosexual acts and solicitations as "gross indecency with another male person" with prison time of nearly two years. The law dates back to the city-state's colonial 19th century administration by the British Empire and is supported by the Singapore's largely conservative population.
McKellen is performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company touring productions of William Shakespeare's "King Lear" and Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull." The Company's world tour starts Thursday in Singapore at the Esplanade, South-East Asia's most modern performing arts centre. McKellen agreed to forbear on his planned nude scene where Lear is sent into exile, in order that minors under 18 in the tiny city-state could attend the performances.
"Call it censorship, call it advice, it gets in the way a little bit. I think it's a little bit silly," McKellen was quoted as saying at a tour briefing.
"As a gay man invited here with the full cognizance of the government, how can they not notice that my right to have sex are inhibited by the country?" McKellen complained in an interview with Reuters. McKellen told the press agency that he only cared to discuss acting and homosexuality saying, "I am just public on those two issues."
We’ve legalized homo sex in the Western nations and in every case it’s led to the demand for laws to force people to rent to homos. It’s led to the state teaching the homo lifestyle to kids in schools against their parents’ desires. We have hate speech laws staring us in the face. Charity groups are being banned from helping orphaned kids find homes because they won’t place the kids in homo households. The dating group E-Harmony has been hauled into court, with the demand that they provide homo matchmaking services.
To libertarians, it seems like a reduction in government to remove strictures against homo conduct. But once you do that, you end up with more government than before, because the uncloseted homos go on a political rampage demanding that the state be utilized to force their perversion into every nook and cranny in society. And the state usually complies.
When the movies first came out he had the incredible audacity to make a statement to the effect that people could now see that a homosexual could be a great actor.
Like he was the first ?? Like he was all that great ?? Incredible vanity ! Incredible inability to see ANYTHING except through the lense of his perverted sexuality !
Nonsense. You expect every nation on earth to be libertarian, and you know what? No country on earth ever will be, because once you allow drug use, homosexual bars and sex clubs, and the like, the resulting societal deterioration causes more oppressive government to arise than if you’d just banned those activities in the first place. Not to mention that the self-absorbed people engaging in these behaviors then demand a whole series of new laws forcing everyone to accept them and even celebrate them.
But that is a perversion of government's purpose.
Its purpose is to protect your rights, including your right NOT to associate with anybody you don't want to associate with.
No one should be forced to associate with homosexuals. Or any other person or group.
Libertarians aren't suggesting the state flip from prohibiting peaceful behavior to forcing acceptance of those you find repugnant. We'd like it to stop in the middle, where everyone's rights are protected, and everyone's freedom is maximized.
Gotta get that hoagie no matter where he travels...
Ummmmmm, the guy's an ACTOR - the only skill needed to act is the ability to "lie" on-screen. Most of these folks are drop-outs - some are drug addicts... Why on earth would anyone listen to him on any subject beyond "how to lie convincingly on stage so people will believe you're someone else".
Come on people. He's a court jester, not the King.
Slippery slope argument. One does not have to lead to another. And laws requiring people to rent to ‘homos’ as you term them are anti-discrimination laws. You should not be able to discriminate against anyone because they are gay. As far as the charity groups/Eharmony stuff goes, yes, that’s sad, and I’m against those groups being able to take legal action because they won’t cater to gays. You can have one wituhout the other.
So you would put sodomy right up there with the right to speedy trial, freedom of speech, and RKBA?
Note that Singapore’s laws that McKellum has a problem with do not involve anything that takes place “behind closed doors”, but prohibits the propositioning of another for a homo sex act and public display of human nudity, even if it is gussied up as art. Hardly a Spanish Inquisition when it comes down to cases. And in my book, some reasonable regulation in a society mature enough to understand that certain things are meant to be private and to be KEPT private.
Shame it's it?
I was looking so forward to "The Hobbit". Jackson did such a good job with LOTR. Technology finally caught up so that he could make the movie to satisfy so many generations of fans of the books.
Whatever. I know this. There is a God. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. That includes you.
I know you’re not desiring to see the state flip from criminalizing homosexuality to forcing it on us. Libertarians that I know are well intentioned and sincere. The problem is, it ALWAYS happens as I described. Can you name a place where tolerance and acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle hasn’t resulted in more government regulations on this issue than before?
San Francisco? The whole state of California? New York City? Massachusetts? Key West? Canada? Sweden? Great Britain? Holland?
In all those places, there is above average tolerance of the homo lifestyle, and in every single case it led not to libertarianism but to statism. Homosexuality is an extreme form of narcissism. As long as it’s closeted and treated by most people and even by government as an ugly perversion, its harm is limited. Homos go off in private and do their dirty little deeds and leave everyone else alone.
But once it’s uncloseted, legalized, and homos are allowed to kiss on public streets, open sissy bars and bathhouses, and the like, things change. They soon start demanding that their perversion be given state sanction. Soon there are anti-discrimination laws, hate speech laws, forced teaching of homosexuality in the schools, private organizations being hauled into court with a demand that they accept homosexuality. In England, they recently passed a law forcing pub owners to permit homo kissing in their establishments.
There’s a reason liberals celebrated the Lawrence sodomy ruling a couple of years ago. It was because they knew it would lead to a big increase in government power, though disguised as the opposite.
Why not?
One of the issues I have is gays linking their agenda with the Civil Rights Movement. However the difference was, blacks were discriminated, solely based on their characteristics (in this case skin color), without regard to their character.
Gays on the other hand, are not defined by a characteristic, but by their behavior. And just as you wouldn't want to all people who act in a rude manner into your establishment, I believe that places have the right to demand that people not be allowed to engage in behaviors that they are against.
Slippery slope arguments are running amuck. I’m not going to respond to another one. You must be able to view every issue separately to honestly debate an issue.
“Some countries may want to actually go by Gods laws to prosper.”
“Whatever. I know this. There is a God. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. That includes you.”
Singapore is 51% Buddhist and Taoist. There are more Muslims than there are Christians. Their laws are not based on your conception of God.
Sorry to disappoint.
If you favor laws forcing people to sell or rent private housing to homosexuals then you aren’t a libertarian.
Yep!
That doesn’t even begin to make sense.
Their laws may fit right into my concept of justice and morality. So their concept of God doesn't fit mine, I'm a tolerant person as long as I'm treated fairly and justly.
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