Gay kiss on live TV evades Singapore’s ban on LGBT content

It was a Singaporean news report on the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, live from a Beijing bar filled with eager fans. Yet it was two men - who burst into the view of the camera, sharing a dramatic kiss - who stole the show.

The clip has since gone viral in Singapore, where broadcasting codes restrict content that promotes LGBT "lifestyles", and where sexual relationships between men are outlawed.

The kiss does not feature in a version of the report published by Channel News Asia (CNA) on its website. But on TikTok a clip of the kiss has been viewed more than 825,000 times. "This is actually an act of revolution," one user wrote. It has also been shared widely on Weibo, a popular social media platform in China.

It is the look given by one of the men, who poses directly to camera post-kiss, that has caught many people's attention, said a representative of Kaleidoscope NTU, a group formed by students at Nanyang Technological university to raise awareness of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, as well as gender, race and class.

"We don't know who this guy is, of course, so we don't know if he knew they were kissing for CNA specifically or just a camera in general. But the defiance of it, the joy that comes with being able to show off your partner and the confidence in getting to be yourself as well, the combination would have naturally spoken to a lot of queer people within the country as well," they said.

China decriminalised same-sex relationships in 1997, but same-sex marriage is not legal there and the LGBTQ+ community continues to face discrimination and censorship.

Activists say the clip, and the reaction it has provoked, illustrates how outdated Singapore's laws are. "Singapore is considered a developed country, but we are really backwards when it comes to LGBT rights," said Jean Chong, a co-founder of Sayoni, an LGBT rights organisation.