McKellen's Singapore gay bar hunt

Singapore's criminal code Section 377 bars men from engaging in “any act of gross indecency” with other men, punishable by a maximum two years in jail. The law isn't enforced much, but it stays on the books to keep those pesky homosexuals in line. In a Time magazine interview in 2003 then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said homosexuals would be safe from prosecution so long as they don't “flaunt your gay rights.”

Leave it to everyone's favorite Middle Earth wizard and knighted gay rights activist to draw attention to the injustice.

Sir Ian McKellen was in Singapore recently and found a fun way to take a jab at the anti-gay criminal code:

"I didn't realise, as a gay man, that I'd be a criminal once I arrived because it's illegal for a man to make love to another man in Singapore. I was rather naughty because I was on an early morning show.... At the end of the interview, they asked what was I looking forward to doing while I was in Singapore. And I looked at the man, who was clearly straight, and said, `Can you recommend any decent gay bars?' which would be illegal in every possible way. I looked at the playback of the programme afterwards and I've never seen the credits come up (on the screen) so quickly."