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."
What is really great is that the Government of Singapore could care less about your lame rating or Ian’s limp-wristed opinion.
Nobody outside of Islam lives in a Theocracy.
Too much of the Cath kool-aid you've been drinking. The possibility of Japan or any other nation going extinct, short of a natural or man made nuclear disaster, is nil. With the world population as it is, no nation is lacking in people. Why you think more is better is beyond me.
And what about his rights to shoot heroin and torture animals??
Singapore is a parliamentary republic. Somehow they ended up making laws which are not approved by you. Tsk.
When Mr. & Mrs. Singapore and their age-cohort are old enough to retire, they will have only one offspring (per two retirees) to support them.
That one adult child of their will be able to find a spouse, but the two of them will have 4 elders to support. (Don't talk to me about social security. It's paid by the working, taxpaying population.) The working-age generation may want to have children of their own, but on the other hand they may want to put it off, tax-burdened as they are by an ever-rising percentage of dependent elderly and super-elderly.
So things are likely to get worse. Many couples will not reproduce at all. And the upshot is:
"The government, fearing that the tiny, prosperous city-state will shrink into oblivion, has recently adopted a series of incentives to encourage people to have not just one or two but three or more children.....Singapore's birthrate has sunk to an all-time low... Raising it has become a national cause, as significant as the fight against terrorism. If the birthrate continues to wane, officials warn, the workforce will shrink. There will be fewer people to support a growing elderly population and to sustain the military that protects this 400-square-mile island sandwiched between Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore's vaunted tiger economy will whimper.."
You might want to look up the news article these quotes came from to get a real-life perspective on Singapore's no-future future.
As an individual ? Horsepuckey !! That is NOT a libertarian or Libertarian position. Only the GOOBERMINT must not discriminate. Individuals can and should discriminate as they see fit !
Your argument in 172 is entirely valid. It also is added to by the fact that most homosexuals are big goobermint fans and vote ‘rat.
But allowing laws against private consensual behavior may start with ones you approve of, but it will grow like a cancer, as it has done today.
One wrong or two wrongs are wrong. Let’s do it right instead.
I don’t need to do the math. In a nation of declining birthrate (that is their option, don’t you agree?), the nation has a choice of saving more for later years or receiving less in old age pensions or welcoming immigration. That is their choice. It has nothing to do with math. It has to do with choice. With the planets population, no nation will go extinct due to low birthrate. It’s just not possible.
Are you sure you read my post?
I was debating someone who asserted that the Bill of Rights guarantees homosexuals the right to rent a house even if the owner of the house doesn’t want to rent to them, and even if the owner of the house has religious beliefs that regard homosexual acts as sinful.
In response, I told him that I could find nothing of the sort in the Bill of Rights.
What part of my argument do you disagree with?
In light of this belief, what is your take on the First Amendment and equivalent amendments to state constitutions? Does it protect a right to impious or evil speech? Not just pornography, mind you, but blasphemy, apostasy, insults, racist slurs, etc?
Would you support outlawing those evils, if the laws could be drafted and enforced in a practical way?
We criminalize that which we believe to be evil, or at least harmful to society in some way. Why else would we criminalize anything?
But how far should that criminalization extend? When do we say, "This act is evil/harmful, but it's not a matter for the law."
Furthermore, who determines that standard, and who determines what is evil?
All human laws are based on human beliefs -moral beliefs. Certainly, imposing beliefs that are specific to a particular religion would represent a violation of conscience, and should be generally avoided. But sodomy doesn't represent such a belief.
I'm sure there are religiouns that condone homosexuality. How do we determine which religions are valid, and which beliefs are "specific" to a particular denomination?
Have you ever criticized the immigration, social, or economic policies of Mexico or Western Europe?
What about Sharia? If Iraqis vote to force the burqa on their women, do we just mind our own business and accept their sovereign authority?
Note that McKellen blames anti-homosexual laws on “old British” legal systems, as if that’s the only reason for them and not, say, Singapore’s large Muslim community.
Note that he does this in Singapore, not in neighboring Malaysia, where he would be all but stomed to death for being what he is.
Thanks for your sane perspective. Laws have in part been written to protect society from itself. It is not a perfect world yet some order is far superior to naive utopian dreams.
BB — I’m not interested in making Singapore’s laws for them. Let them ban gay bars. Let them give their moms and dads sizeable tax breaks. Let them slow down and smell the coco-puffs. It’s all OK by me.
Actually, it's to protect our "precious little society" that people go to the trouble of forming governments and making laws.
You seem to think you could defend your individual rights, indifferent to the disintegration of the "precious little society" in which you live, a society which you disdain to take responsibility for, create and sustain cultural norms for, or protect.
Maybe you could, if you lived in a treehouse way, WAY back from a gravel road in Idaho.
oops, the above message was for arderkrag!
Exactly! As far as I’m concerned, McKellen’s whining carries about as much weight as an Arab sheik moving to the states and complaining that we don’t permit polygamy.
Since when does a visiting actor get to demand that an entire nation change their laws and traditions to satisfy his desires?
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Homosexuality is a perversion that completely engulfs its practitioners if society fails to keep it under wraps. What other group in our society defines itself by its sexual behavior? Now that we’ve taken this perversion out of the closet, you can’t even take your kids to a ball game without being confronted with a celebration of homosexuality.
If you were to start a new monthly magazine for celery farmers, within a week you’d receive a call from some “gay rights” group demanding that you dedicate at least one issue per year to highlighting “gay” celery farmers, homosexual chefs who use celery in their creations, or lesbians who drive celery trucks. And if you failed to comply, you’d be called a homophobic hate-monger.
These people are so thoroughly absorbed in their perverted lifestyle that everything they do must be seen as an extension of their sexuality. Everyone who disagrees with them must be shut up. And even entire nations are expected to toss aside thousands of years of tradition and religious faith to accommodate their deviancy.
"...to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them... that all men are created... Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world... with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence..."
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