In a democracy, “affairs of state become […] social matters and […] social matters become affairs of state,” writes Schmitt in The Concept of the Political.[1] For him, “everything is at least potentially political,” even seemingly neutral domains such as religion, culture, economy, law and science, which cease to be neutral once they influence or are influenced by politics.[2] To better understand what is considered political, Schmitt posits that political actions and motives can be reduced to a criterion which differentiates between friend and enemy. A friend is an in-group for the individuals or groups that are united behind a common cause, and an enemy is an out-group, which remains outside the union.[3] Schmitt reasons that conflicts with the enemy can only be settled by the participants, and not by norms or a neutral third party, because only the participants can “correctly recognise, understand, and judge the concrete situation.”[4] What they will judge is whether the “adversary intends to negate his opponent’s way of life and therefore must be repulsed or fought in order to preserve one’s own form of existence.”[5] Hence, these concepts “are to be understood in their concrete and existential sense,” how the relation is in actuality, not normatively but as it is, as a “state of affairs.”[6]
While the concepts of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’ have in common use become loaded with “moral, aesthetic, economic” and other axiological connotations, Schmitt makes clear that “the political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions.”[7] Political enemies are not considered enemies because they are immoral but because they are “the other, the stranger.”[8] According to Schmitt, political concepts “are focused on a specific conflict and are bound to a concrete situation” resulting in a friend-enemy grouping.[9] The political is neither abstract nor objective; the friend-enemy grouping is not permanent—a friend in one situation may be an enemy in another situation.[10] An enemy might possibly have to be fought and killed, as an “extreme consequence of enmity.” [11] They need not necessarily be combated but there always remains the possibility. As Schmitt writes: “The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing.”[12]
Seemingly neutral domains cease to be neutral and become political, once they begin categorising people or groups of people according to the friend-enemy distinction, such as in Schmitt’s example of religious wars: “A religious community which wages wars against members of other religious communities or engages in other wars is already more than a religious community; it is a political entity.”[13] This applies to the other seemingly neutral domains of culture, economy, law and science. If the friend-enemy distinction made in such domains become intense enough to justify killing, the non-political agenda of these domains becomes subordinated to the political situation.[14]
However, this possibility of killing and being killed is not to be taken lightly. Schmitt believes that there is no ideal, rationale, norm or concept which is so important or good that it can justify fighting to the death. The only justification is an “existential [not normative] threat to one’s own way of life.”[15] Hence, if one uses normative ideals, such as humanity, peace, justice, progress, civilisation and morality to justify war, that person is attempting to “usurp universal concept[s] against its military opponent.”[16] These ideals become rhetorical weapons used ex-post to justify one’s actions.[17]
Singapore’s LGBT Issue
This paper uses Schmitt’s concept of the political and its friend-enemy distinction to analyse the LGBT situation in Singapore. To do so, we first need to understand the legal situation. In Singapore, discrimination against LGBTs have a legal basis. §377A of the Singapore Penal Code criminalises sex between men.[18] §377A has survived legal challenges on constitutional grounds even as the government has explicitly stated it will not “proactively enforce” this law. In one such challenge in 2020, Justice See Kee Oon judged that while not enforced, §377A “cannot be said to be redundant” since it “serves the purpose of safeguarding public morality by showing societal moral disapproval of male homosexual acts” and is “important in reflecting public sentiments and beliefs.”[19] The LGBT community should remain cautious: even if seldom used, §377A has been used, with the Attorney-General citing one such case in 2008.[20] The Attorney-General’s Chambers also argued that the issue was socio-political and hence should be decided by Parliament and not the courts.[21] In addition to §377A, LGBT people in Singapore face other laws and regulations that constrain their options, such as a ban on same-sex marriage, and restrictions on public housing ownership and assisted reproduction.[22]
Schmitt recognises that the law is an important weapon that “can be utilised to support or refute other domains.”[23] It is a legitimisation of the status quo, “the preservation of which interests particularly those whose political power or economic advantage would stabilise itself in this law.”[24] Hence, to understand the political meaning of this weapon, Schmitt has taught that we need to ask who is being “affected, combated, refuted or negated” by these laws.[25] To discover who this is and why, we need to understand Singapore’s politics.
The state of Singapore’s politics is reflected in the composition of its Parliament. It comprises, inter alia, 93 elected MPs, 10 belonging to the opposition and 83 belonging to the People’s Action Party (PAP), the ruling party since 1959.[26] Given its dominance, scholars have described the PAP as a “hegemonic party” which “possesses ideological dominance over the populace.”[27] Analysing the LGBT situation, Walid Jumblatt Abdullah asks: “Why does a government that prides itself on knowing better than its citizens, and one that has perpetually emphasised that good governance entails not capitulating to public pressure, consider the ‘readiness’ of society in explaining its decision not to repeal §377A?”[28] Reflecting on the PAP’s avowed pragmatism, he postulates that since the state has “no clear ideological and/or moral position” on the LGBT issue, it is attempting to “maximise electoral support by appeasing, or at the very least not antagonising, both liberals and conservatives.”[29] Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a parliamentary speech had said: “The Government does not act as moral policemen.”[30]
Abdullah contrasts the ‘hijab issue,’ where Muslims in Singapore have requested the government to allow Muslim women to wear the hijab in certain frontline government jobs, with the LGBT issue, to illustrate how the government uses the same language of secularism to argue its case differently:
In the Hijab issue, ‘secularism’ is argued to be a principled stance whereby religious demands must not override the pressing needs of the country. When it comes to LGBT rights, however, the ‘readiness’ of the conservative-religious segments of society is considered in the policymaking process.[31]
Abdullah argues that if we look through the rhetoric, the approach for both issues differs because the hijab issue concerns multiracialism, a core ideology of the ruling party, whereas the LGBT issue does not concern a core ideology.[32] He writes: “Secularism can comprise multi-faceted meanings and can be used to bolster a politician’s or a party’s electoral standing, just as other concepts, including religion, can be used.”[33] On this note, he observes that the loudest opposition to LGBT rights are from religious groups and individuals, especially the Christian and Muslim community, based on their moral principles informed by religious beliefs. This raises the question of why an avowedly secular state would give any weight to such religious opposition.[34] Schmitt will agree that by entering the LGBT debate, these groups have become political since they seek to refute the LGBT way of life.
On same-sex marriage, PM Lee said in 2015: “I do not think Singapore is ready. […] The society is basically a conservative one.”[35] In 2017, he said: “Attitudes have changed, but I believe if you have a referendum on the issue today, 377A would stand.”[36] In addition to such references by the country’s leaders to the need for society to accept LGBTs before the law can change, Abdullah notes that “the state’s overt declaration that §377A will not be enforced, coupled with its increased willingness to engage with the gay lobby, demonstrates that the state indeed does not have a clear aversion to homosexuality.”[37]
Applying Schmitt to Singapore’s LGBT Issue
Politics is the realm of contested notions, where the sovereign decides between them for the community, according to Schmitt.[38] Not all notions are contested. Some, such as scientific or technological notions, may be purely factual but even what is factual shifts into the political when used as a weapon.[39] For instance, it is a scientific fact that homosexuals cannot through homosexual sex have children without the aid of reproductive technologies or through adoption. This fact is non-political but the decision whether to permit homosexuals to use reproductive technologies or to adopt is political.[40]
In every policy, there are those who benefit and those who are hurt by it. Analysing policies through Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction suggests that policymakers have decided that some segments of society are friends and others as enemies for each policy. As Abdullah posits, a possible reason driving the friend-enemy decision may be to maximise electoral support. A friend-group may help save the politicians’ political lives in future elections by voting them in since they like the politicians’ policies while an enemy-group may not be so valuable in terms of electoral support.
The latter may constitute a minority such as the LGBT community, be ineligible to vote such as children or convicts,[41] or tend to look past a disadvantageous policy, and hence can be ‘sacrificed’ in favour of a friend-group who may for instance belong to a majority such as the supposedly conservative public. An instance of a policy explicitly favouring one group over another is Singapore’s public housing policy, which favours conventional married couples over singles, who include LGBTs, divorcees or the young.[42] Another would be §377A. Lawyer M. Ravi in a 2014 constitutional challenge on §377A argued that §377A was “absurd because it criminalised a minority of citizens based on a core aspect of their identity which was either unchangeable or suppressible only at a great personal cost.”[43] While the situation may not (yet) reach the Schmittian extreme of being killed, “great personal cost” comes close. The judgement of the case however said: “In so far as the supposed immutability of a person’s sexual orientation is concerned, the conflicting scientific views on this issue suggest that there is, at present, no definitive conclusion.”[44] Baey Shi Chen criticises this line of reasoning as rendering LGBTs “invisible and dehumanised in Singapore’s society.”[45]
While a person’s sexual orientation is arguably immutable, the friend-enemy grouping is not. How then can the LGBT community change its status from enemy to friend? In a democracy, the electorate decides which politicians get elected. Hence the elected is representative of the wishes of the electorate. In Singapore’s context, its leaders have indicated that societal acceptance is needed to catalyse change to its policies affecting LGBTs. This coheres with Abdullah’s view that on the LGBT issue, the PAP’s strategy is to maximise electoral support. Hence, a plausibly suitable strategy might be to sway the electorate so that they decide that the LGBT community, which is currently an enemy, is instead a friend.
Even though the LGBT community did not choose to be an enemy, they have been designated as such. Hence, they need to be ready for the possibility of having to engage in combat. Their way of life is being negated. To survive, the adversary must be repulsed or fought, according to Schmitt. Such combat has occurred in the evolution of human rights elsewhere. The advent of LGBT and civil rights in the US came at a price paid for in blood. The 1969 Stonewall riots saw fighting between police and gay people, and the American Civil Rights Movement saw violence against the protestors culminating in the 1968 assassination of its de facto leader Martin Luther King Jr.[46]
Schmitt recognises that arguing from reason and principle is not sufficient—there is a need to move from the normative to the existential, from abstract principles to the concrete.[47] The Singapore LGBT community need to bring their case for LGBT rights out of the realm of liberal “perpetual discussion”[48] of principled and reasoned arguments into the ‘real’. They need to bring their case out of abstraction so as to convince the electorate that they too have a stake since people are not just governed by reason but also by their emotions, a need to belong which favours the status quo and biases. The activist already knows that they may have to make real sacrifices, such as subjecting themselves to possible persecution including violence and penalties from the authorities or the public but what can a ‘regular’ person do?
LGBT rights in Singapore is a Schmittian battleground—a real fight which may possibly turn violent. The electorate needs to know that the issue is real and pressing, not simply an abstraction or ‘something that happens to other people.’ To show them just how concrete the situation is, the electorate needs to realise that they know and possibly value people who are gay and are indirectly hurting them by permitting unfair laws through supporting political agendas against LGBTs. It is no less a real fight for the LGBTs since coming out of the closet may entail being emotionally or physically hurt through being rejected by one’s family and loved ones, being hurt by homophobes through being visible and/or being hurt in the workplace through intolerance by colleagues, bosses or the company.
To change minds, one can begin with persuasion and arguments from reason which is the Schmittian realm of the normative, but without being willing to accept the possibility that combat might ultimately be called for, which is the realm of the existential, the issue remains out of the realm of the political. It is a fight in the case of LGBT rights in Singapore because the adversary intends to negate his opponent’s way of life. One needs to be prepared for the possibility of a fight simply because one cannot breathe anymore.[49] Fighting means to risk being hurt but running from the confrontation is also a risky and costly strategy since it means having to hide, to pretend, to live inauthentically and to not be able to fulfil one’s potential. The LGBT community cannot even escape the fight since the fight has been brought to their door. If violence can be avoided, all the better but to remain defenceless is a poor option. Schmitt explains: “It would be ludicrous to believe a defenceless people has nothing but friends, and it would be a deranged calculation to suppose that the enemy could perhaps be touched by the absence of a resistance.”[50]
Conclusion
Analysing Singapore’s law and policies affecting LGBTs using Schmitt’s concept of the political and its friend-enemy distinction suggests that the conservative segments of society are the friends and the LGBT community the enemy. If societal acceptance is needed for change to policies affecting LGBTs, as intimated by Singapore’s political leaders, a suitable strategy may be to sway the electorate so that they will decide that the current enemy, the LGBT community, is instead a friend.
The opposition to LGBT rights is currently fronted by the conservative-religious segments of society, making it seem to be about principles of morality. However, to fail to realise that morality is not the real battle will be precisely the mistake that Schmitt has warned us about, “for life struggles not with death, spirit not with spiritlessness; spirit struggles with spirit, life with life, and out of the power of an integral understanding of this arises the order of human things.”[51] The battle at hand is a struggle between opposing groups of friends and enemies. Understanding the realpolitik posited by Schmitt may hence advance new strategies to resolve Singapore’s LGBT issue.
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CBRE. “Singapore Remains the 2nd Most Expensive Housing Market in the World After Hong Kong,” April 11, 2019. https://www.cbre.com.sg/about/media-centre/singapore-remains-the-2nd-most-expensive-housing-market-in-the-world-after-hong-kong.
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CNA. “Section 377A: Public Prosecutor Retains ‘Full Prosecutorial Discretion’, Says Attorney-General.” CNA, October 2, 2018. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/377a-attorney-general-singapore-law-prosecute-10783436.
TODAYonline. “Conservative S’pore ‘Not Ready for Same-Sex Marriage,’” June 5, 2015. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/spore-not-ready-same-sex-marriage-pm-lee.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. New ed. 1952. London: Pluto Press, 2008.
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“‘I Can’t Breathe’: The Refrain That Reignited a Movement,” June 30, 2020. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/i-cant-breathe-refrain-reignited-movement/.
Lam, Lydia. “High Court Judge Dismisses All Three Challenges to Section 377A.” CNA, March 30, 2020. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/377a-challenge-dismissed-high-court-judge-penal-code-12588738.
Lee, Hsien Loong. “Full Parliamentary Speech by PM Lee Hsien Loong in 2007 on Section 377A.” The Straits Times, October 24, 2007. https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/full-parliamentary-speech-by-pm-lee-hsien-loong-in-2007-on-section-377a.
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People’s Action Party. “Our Party.” Accessed April 12, 2021. https://www.pap.org.sg/our-party/.
Rajeswari, Indulekshmi, ed. Same but Different: A Legal Guidebook for LGBT Couples & Families in Singapore. Singapore: Indulekshmi Rajeswari, 2017.
Schmitt, Carl. “The Age of Neutralisations and Depoliticisation (1929).” In The Concept of the Political, translated by Matthias Konzen and John P. McCormick, Expanded ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
———. The Concept of the Political. Translated by George Schwab. Expanded ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Sebastian, Simone. “Don’t Criticize Black Lives Matter for Provoking Violence. The Civil Rights Movement Did, Too.” Washington Post, October 1, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/01/dont-criticize-black-lives-matter-for-provoking-violence-the-civil-rights-movement-did-too/.
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Vijayan, K. C. “Court Rejects Bid by Gay Man to Make Partner Guardian of His Two Surrogate Children.” The Straits Times, February 17, 2020. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/court-rejects-bid-by-gay-man-to-make-partner-guardian-of-his-two-surrogate-children.
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[1] Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (TCP), trans. George Schwab, Expanded ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 22.
[2] Schmitt, 22.
[3] Schmitt, 26.
[4] Schmitt, 27.
[5] Schmitt, 27.
[6] Schmitt, 27; Tracy B. Strong, “Foreword: Dimensions of the New Debate around Carl Schmitt,” in The Concept of the Political, by Carl Schmitt, trans. George Schwab, Expanded ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), xvii.
[7] Schmitt, TCP, 27, my italics.
[8] Schmitt, 27.
[9] Schmitt, 30.
[10] Schmitt, 32.
[11] Schmitt, 33.
[12] Schmitt, 33.
[13] Schmitt, 37.
[14] Schmitt, 37.
[15] Schmitt, 49.
[16] Schmitt, 54.
[17] Schmitt, 67.
[18] The section is entitled “Outrages on decency” and reads: “377A. Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.”
[19] Lydia Lam, “High Court Judge Dismisses All Three Challenges to Section 377A,” CNA, March 30, 2020, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/377a-challenge-dismissed-high-court-judge-penal-code-12588738.
[20] CNA, “Section 377A: Public Prosecutor Retains ‘Full Prosecutorial Discretion’, Says Attorney-General,” CNA, October 2, 2018, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/377a-attorney-general-singapore-law-prosecute-10783436.
[21] Lam, “High Court Judge Dismisses All Three Challenges to Section 377A.”
[22] Indulekshmi Rajeswari, ed., Same but Different: A Legal Guidebook for LGBT Couples & Families in Singapore (Singapore: Indulekshmi Rajeswari, 2017).
[23] Schmitt, TCP, 66.
[24] Schmitt, 66.
[25] Schmitt, 31.
[26] “Milestones,” People’s Action Party, accessed April 13, 2021, https://www.pap.org.sg/milestones/. The party was dominant even prior to the country’s independence in 1965.
[27] Walid Jumblatt Abdullah, “Electoral Secularism in Singapore: Political Responses to Homosexuality,” Asian Studies Review 43, no. 2 (2019): 242, doi: 10.1080/10357823.2019.1593945.
[28] Abdullah, 239.
[29] “Our Party,” People’s Action Party, accessed April 12, 2021, https://www.pap.org.sg/our-party/; Abdullah, “Electoral Secularism in Singapore,” 240.
[30] Hsien Loong Lee, “Full Parliamentary Speech by PM Lee Hsien Loong in 2007 on Section 377A,” The Straits Times, October 24, 2007, https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/full-parliamentary-speech-by-pm-lee-hsien-loong-in-2007-on-section-377a.
[31] Abdullah, “Electoral Secularism in Singapore,” 241.
[32] Abdullah, “Electoral Secularism in Singapore”; Cf. Our Core Values from “Our Party.”
[33] Abdullah, “Electoral Secularism in Singapore,” 241.
[34] Abdullah, 246–47; Abdullah points out the religious moral form of argumentation of two leading characters in the LGBT debates, Nominated MP Thio Li-Ann’s moral stance as a Christian and Lawrence Khong, a Christian pastor who claims that the Christian right needs to fill the “moral vacuum left by the state.” (Abdullah, 245) A Nominated MP is a non-elected MP appointed by the President (see “What Exactly Does a Nominated Member of Parliament Do?”, 2014, http://www.gov.sg/article/what-exactly-does-a-nominated-member-of-parliament-do.)
[35] “Conservative S’pore ‘Not Ready for Same-Sex Marriage,’” TODAYonline, June 5, 2015, https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/spore-not-ready-same-sex-marriage-pm-lee.
[36] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Transcript of PM Lee Hsien Loong’s Interview with BBC HARDtalk,” February 23, 2017, http://www.mfa.gov.sg/Newsroom/Press-Statements-Transcripts-and-Photos/2017/02/Transcript-of-PM-Lee-Hsien-Loongs-Interview-with-BBC-HARDtalk.
[37] Abdullah, “Electoral Secularism in Singapore,” 250.
[38] Schmitt, TCP, 38.
[39] Carl Schmitt, “The Age of Neutralisations and Depoliticisation (1929),” in The Concept of the Political, trans. Matthias Konzen and John P. McCormick, Expanded ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 91.
[40] See K. C. Vijayan, “Court Rejects Bid by Gay Man to Make Partner Guardian of His Two Surrogate Children,” The Straits Times, February 17, 2020, https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/court-rejects-bid-by-gay-man-to-make-partner-guardian-of-his-two-surrogate-children.
[41] The Law Revision Commission, The Statues of the Republic of Singapore: Parliamentary Elections Act (Chapter 218), 2011, para. 6 (1A) (a).
[42] According to the eligibility policy of the Housing and Development Board, Singapore’s public housing authority, those forming family nuclei are eligible from 21 years of age to buy a public housing flat while unmarried people in general need to be at least 35 years old. According to CBRE, an international real estate services company, Singapore is the second most expensive housing market in the world, making public housing, which is typically less expensive than private housing, particularly important to its residents. (HDB, “Eligibility - Housing & Development Board (HDB),” accessed April 12, 2021, https://www.hdb.gov.sg/residential/buying-a-flat/resale/eligibility; CBRE, “Singapore Remains the 2nd Most Expensive Housing Market in the World After Hong Kong,” April 11, 2019, https://www.cbre.com.sg/about/media-centre/singapore-remains-the-2nd-most-expensive-housing-market-in-the-world-after-hong-kong.)
[43] SGCA, Singapore Court of Appeal (SGCA) 53 (2014): Civil Appeal No 54 of 2013 and Summons No 3664 of 2013, 2014, para. 53. My italics.
[44] SGCA, para. 53.
[45] Baey Shi Chen, “Challenging the Constitutionality of Section 377A in Singapore: Towards a More Humanist Treatment of Homosexuality in Singapore Law,” IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies 6, no. SI (January 22, 2021): 67, doi: 10.22492/ijcs.6.SI.05.
[46] “Stonewall Riots,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed April 12, 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Stonewall-riots; From a 2015 Washington Post article referring to the Civil Rights Movement: “Protesters who marched in the streets of America’s most staunchly racist cities and towns were attacked by police dogs, their clothing was tattered by high-pressure fire hoses, and their lives were taken by police officers’ bullets.” (Simone Sebastian, “Don’t Criticize Black Lives Matter for Provoking Violence. The Civil Rights Movement Did, Too.,” Washington Post, October 1, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/01/dont-criticize-black-lives-matter-for-provoking-violence-the-civil-rights-movement-did-too/.)
[47] Schmitt, TCP, 85.
[48] Schmitt, 72.
[49] See Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann, New ed. (1952. London: Pluto Press, 2008), 176; Fanon talks about being unable to breathe in relation to racism, while the same notion captured by the words uttered by Eric Garner and George Floyd, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. (“‘I Can’t Breathe’: The Refrain That Reignited a Movement,” June 30, 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/i-cant-breathe-refrain-reignited-movement/.)
[50] Schmitt, TCP, 53.
[51] Schmitt, “Age,” 96.
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