Fridae

It's been a fantastic first week of Indignation 2007, Singapore's Gay Pride Season which ended on Tuesday. We've been hit with four bans by the government.

Although Kissing, a photo exhibition, has been banned by the Media Development Authority at the eleventh hour, Indignation - Singapore's GLBT pride season - will go ahead with its other events from Aug 1 - 15.

''Some of us will die much younger than we expect. We may not have as much time as we think. And inevitably the question arises, what have we done? What have our lives amounted to?'' Alex Au reflects on some of man's most fundamental questions on life in an uncharacteristic column.

A member of the audience demanded to know what God's natural purpose for the mouth and anus was while another linked homosexuality with bestiality, paedophilia and incest... Find out what went on at the dialogue session on Christianity and homosexuality last night.

Barely six months after Singapore-born, world-renowned fashion photographer Leslie Kee's book, which features nude images of Asian celebrities, was banned by the Singapore government, 150 of 500 photographs made it past the censors and are now on exhibit. Fridae columnist Alex Au visits the exhibition and gives readers a low down on what to expect.

Was MM Lee Kuan Yew asking a rhetorical question when he said, "Why should we criminalise it [homosexuality]?" Singapore's pioneer gay activist and Fridae columnist Alex Au picks his remarks and related media reports apart.

Should a recently circulated church statement, which called homosexuality "sinful, abhorrent and deviant" and for the criminalisation of lesbian sex, cause LGBTs to lose sleep? Fridae columnist and gay activist Alex Au weighs in on the issue.

The Internet has on many occasions been credited as a liberating force for LGBTs but is it really? Alex Au examines the two features of the Internet that may work against LGBTs in reducing visibility of LGBT individuals as well as audience fragmentation given that surfers choose what they want to read online.

2006 saw a bumper crop of gay-themed movies screened in Singapore. In light of the recent ban of gay Singaporean photographer's book on Asian stars in the citystate among other incidences, Alex Au examines the censors' rationale of its decisions.

If parents are able to choose the sexual orientation of their children, should they be permitted to? Should research enabling this be stopped? Alex Au has more on the recently reported controversy about 'gay sheep' experiments.