Singapore - Singapore on Tuesday legalised oral and anal sex between heterosexual couples but retained a law which criminalises intercourse between gay men.
In the city-state's first major penal code amendments in 22 years, parliament repealed a section criminalising "carnal intercourse against the order of nature".
Parliament however kept the penal code's section 377A, which makes sex between men a criminal offence, rejecting a petition by gay-rights activists and their non-homosexual supporters to abolish the law as well.
Opponents of the law say it is a relic of British colonial rule. The law punishes offenders with up to two years in jail, although it has rarely been enforced.
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Under the just-approved amendments, new offences were enacted to tackle child prostitution and sex tourism as well as cover crimes committed with the use of technology such as the Internet and cellphone text messaging.
But a rare petition read in parliament to abolish the law banning sex between men sparked the most passionate debates in the normally staid legislature dominated by the ruling People's Action Party.
Legislators supporting the law's retention centred their arguments on the need to maintain family and moral values in the conservative Asian society, while proponents appealed for equal treatment of minorities guaranteed by the constitution.
Member of parliament Siew Kum Hong, who supported the petition, said legalising sexual acts between two consenting heterosexual adults while refusing to decriminalise the same acts between homosexual men was discriminatory.
But Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong weighed in for the retention of the law, saying that Singapore remains a conservative society - with the traditional family as its main building block - and homosexuals cannot set the tone for the mainstream.
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