What is the price to pay for sexual privacy?


Some people are highly energised when it comes to campaigning for a cause. These zealots include abortionists, feminists and human rights advocates who have joined or initiated large-scale campaigns.


    Baby boomers  remember the 1960s when anti-war and sexual liberation movements
made headlines. Then came other crusades for the abolition of capital punishment, ban on nuclear tests, prohibition of pornography, protection of the environment and whatnot. 


   Now we have this LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) group seeking non-discrimination, individual right to privacy and decriminalization of homosexuality. They cite the Vienna Declaration, Yogyarkarta Principles and Universal Declaration of Human Right for their case.


     Why, homosexuality is already legalised in 155 countries where consensual sodomy is permitted. Even China, Indonesia and the Vatican City no longer outlaw same-sex relationships, the LGBT campaigners stress. 


     Alas! Any "gross decency with another male person" or sexual act "against the order of nature"is still prohibited in 80 countries. The penalty in at least five countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, is death. 


     In Malaysia, the LGBT champions assert, the sodomy law is archaic. It still retains Section 377 of the Penal Code, a colonial-era criminal law adapted from the Indian version of 1860 and applied to former colonies like Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.


    As early as 1290, the Common Law in England held that sodomy was a crime punishable by being burnt alive. Hanging was introduced when the Buggery Act 1533 was enforced. 


    Well, the LGBT movement points out, all these countries and India have repealed the anti-sodomy law. So why is a modern, moderate Muslim country like Malaysia out of sync with the changing times?


    True, sodomy is a crime in Malaysia; it is punishable with prison sentences of up to 20 years plus caning. A Muslim accused can also be charged in a Shariah court.


    In late March, a former university student was sentenced to a total of 21 years' imprisonment and ordered to received 11 lashes for committing unnatural sex acts on two boys at a house. A high price to pay, no doubt.


     The government has prohibited homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals from
appearing on television. In 1998, 45 Muslim transvestites were charged and convicted in court for impersonating women. Three years later,  visiting foreign Cabinet Ministers or diplomats who were gay were warned that they would be deported.
       
   As a matter of fact, Belize, Lesotho, Swaziland and Trinidad and Tobago disallow LGBT people from entering the countries. The United Nations Human Rights Commission deplores the ruling. 


    For sodomites, a comforting thought is that they are neither harassed nor prosecuted in European Union countries, Japan, North and South Korea, and the Philippines. Same-sex conjugal visits in prisons are allowed in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.


    But stay away from  Egypt, Botswana or Brunei. Don't do your own thing in Barbados or Pakistan; offenders may be sentenced to life improsonment!