Gay sex in Singapore

Singapore - Singapore's founding leader Lee Kuan Yew has questioned the city-state's ban on gay sex, saying the government should not be the moral police on the issue, reported a newspaper.

"If in fact it is true, and I have asked doctors this, that you are genetically born a homosexual - because that's the nature of the genetic random transmission of genes - you can't help it," Lee was quoted as saying in The Straits Times newspaper.

"So why should we criminalise it?"

Under proposed changes to its legislation, Singapore will decriminalise oral and anal sex for adult heterosexuals, but will keep a ban on gay sex.

The amendments are scheduled to be debated in parliament later this year.

But Lee, who was prime minister from 1959 until 1990 and remains influential in the government under the title of "Minister Mentor", also said the government could not ignore conservative views, said the report.