Fridae

Following his widely reported comments on April 21 about homosexuality and whether current gay sex laws should be retained in Singapore, Reuters news agency asked Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew about whether he thought the government should repeal its gay sex law.

Was MM Lee Kuan Yew asking a rhetorical question when he said, "Why should we criminalise it [homosexuality]?" Singapore's pioneer gay activist and Fridae columnist Alex Au picks his remarks and related media reports apart.

Nearly a decade after his widely quoted remarks about the gay issue in Singapore in a 1998 CNN interview, former PM Lee Kuan Yew again commented on the issue over the weekend - this time acknowledging that homosexuality might be genetically determined and questioned the city-state's ban on sex between men.