We have great news from Malaysia.
According to the Thompson Reuters Foundation, a Malaysian man has won a landmark court case against the Islamic ban on gay sex. In the Asian country mostly run by Islamic law, same-sex acts are considered “against the order of nature.” Due to the country having a dual-track legal system, with Islamic criminal and family laws being applied on top of civil laws, gay sex is considered illegal. But now, things are changing.
The 30-year-old Muslim man, whose identity has been withheld for safety reasons, filed the lawsuit in 2018. This was after a private residence in Selangor was raided and he was arrested, alongside 10 other men, for “attempting gay sex.” The man denied the claims. In 2019, five of the men were sentenced to fines, imprisonment, and six strokes of the cane.
The Human Rights Watch reports that human rights lawyers and organizations supported the anonymous man in appealing the conviction. Their argument was that the enactment of section 28 was ultra vires, or beyond the state’s powers. Meaning, the state had no power to enforce an Islamic ban on gay sex because a similar federal/civil law already exists. In the end, nine judges of Malaysia’s Federal Court agreed and said the state’s power to act on such a law “is subject to a constitutional limit.”
While federal laws are just as homophobic as state/Islamic law, including stating that there cannot be any “introduction of the penis into the anus or mouth of the other person,” federal police are typically not as homophobic or aggressive as state religious officials. They certainly are not as known to raid people’s private bedrooms.
Of course, this isn’t the end of anti-LGBTQ discrimination in Malaysia. Gay sex is still illegal within the country. Just, it’s now not as illegal. Despite that, LGBTQ rights advocates are celebrating the win.
“This is historic. This is monumental for LGBT+ rights in Malaysia,” said the founder of the LGBTQ Rights group Pelangi Campaign, Numan Afifi.
Source: Reuters, Human Rights Watch,
