Singapore will keep its ban on gay sex, declining to follow the lead of an Indian court that threw out a similar British colonial-era law last week, a newspaper reported Monday.
The state-owned New Paper quoted Law Minister K. Shanmugam as saying the law will remain because most Singaporeans don't accept homosexuality.
However, Shanmugam pledged the government would not enforce the law.
"We sometimes in these things have to accept a bit of messiness," Shanmugam told a neighborhood residents' meeting, according to the paper. "The way the society is going, we don't think it's fair for us to prosecute people who say that they are homosexual."
The Delhi High Court ruled last week that treating consensual gay sex between adults as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution. The ruling, the first of its kind in India, is not binding outside New Delhi.
Under Singapore law, sex between homosexuals is punishable by two years in jail.
Singapore legalized oral and anal sex between heterosexual couples in 2007.
