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85 people lodged police reports against Pastor Rony Tan |
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 According to influential Asian online gay portal fridae.com, some 85 people including prominent young filmmakers Sun Koh and Royston Tan have lodged police reports last weekend against Lighthouse Evangelism Senior Pastor's disparaging remarks about homosexuals in video clip which was initially posted on his website, but had been taken off after he was hauled up for questioning by the Internal Security Department (ISD) last Monday.
Pastor Rony sparked a massive outcry in Singapore for trivialising some teachings of Buddhism and Taoism during a church session which was uploaded to Youtube and widely circulated in cyberspace.
He has since apologized for his "mistake" and promised to spread the message of religious harmony to Singaporeans from now onwards.
The video in question now featured the testimony of Ms Cheryl Bachelor, a part-time employee of the church who claimed that she was "healed" from lesbianism. It was on the website for several months. A blogger by the name of Kenneth Tan watched the video on Monday night just before it was removed and decided to rip it.
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 We're here. We're queer. Get used to it. Can Singapore accept its gay community?
Anything goes at Taboo. As your eyes get used to the dim blue lighting, you catch silhouettes of couples kissing, touching, and necking openly, both on and off the dance floor. The first surprise is that almost all the patrons are male. Surprise No. 2-are you sitting down?-is that this is in Singapore.
Yes, that most uptight of Asian countries has a surprisingly lively gay scene. Taboo is one of three nightclubs in the Tanjong Pagar suburb that has a large homosexual clientele. At the two 24-hour coffee shops, it's not unusual to see flamboyantly attired drag queens enjoying a late night snack. By day, the cafE at the Borders bookstore downtown is a popular gay hangout. Those who prefer to stay in the closet can find refuge in numerous websites and Internet chat groups run by local gay activists. "Singapore is probably the safest place to live in Asia now", says Shen, a gay playwright.
Let's not get carried away here: homosexuality is still illegal in Singapore, as in many other Asian countries. Though the government leaves homosexuals alone that doesn't mean that it's open to discussions about gay rights. Only last May, a gay group was denied permission to hold a forum on the role of homosexuals in society. The local media shuns coverage of homosexual issues for fear of being censured for "promoting homosexuality," which can get their licenses suspended. In schools, sex-ed courses focus almost exclusively on heterosexuality-the only mention of same-gender sex reminds students that it is against the law. Unsurprisingly, Singaporean society remains deeply conservative: in November, an Anglican church in the Queenstown district strung a banner across its faCade, proclaiming that HOMOSEXUALS CAN CHA NGE.
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South Eastern Asia 
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