A grandson of Singapore’s late founding father Lee Kuan Yew revealed on Friday he had married his boyfriend in South Africa, prompting a flurry of mostly positive reactions in his country, where male homosexuality is banned, and around the region.
Li Huanwu, the second son of Lee Hsien Yang, was seen with his partner Heng Yirui in an Instagram post the latter shared online on Friday with a caption that read: “Today I marry my soulmate. Looking forward to a lifetime of moments like this with [Huanwu].”
The picture showed both in matching white shirts and khaki trousers at a game reserve in Cape Town.
“I’ll echo my comment I made to Pink Dot – today would have been unimaginable to us growing up. We are overjoyed to share this occasion in the glowing company of friends and family,” Li told the South China Morning Post.
Li’s father, Lee Hsien Yang, is himself the second and youngest son of the elder Lee, who died in March 2015.
Asked about his son’s nuptials, Lee told the Post : “I believe my father would have been thrilled to know this.”
Sex between men remains illegal in Singapore under Section 377A of the Penal Code but Lee Kuan Yew, who was Prime Minister for 31 years until 1990, had been known to express a different opinion from the government in his later years.
Li’s wedding was held in South Africa, where same-sex marriages were legalised in 2006. It also came amid celebrations lauding Taiwan’s recent legalisation of gay marriages last week – the first of its kind in Asia.
On Friday, independent news sites in Singapore, including Mothership.sg and The Independent, were quick to pick up on the announcement while mainstream media outlets steered clear of reporting it.
Mothership’s Facebook post by Saturday had attracted 1,700 likes and 400 comments, mostly positive and congratulating the pair. One user, Donna Lim, commented: “Congrats! Love has no boundaries.”
In mainland China, multiple posts of Li’s wedding surfaced on social media app WeChat, which have garnered hundreds of likes and comments as of Saturday afternoon.
A few reacted with disdain but many of the Chinese commentators also congratulated the couple, with some hoping that Li would front the fight for gay rights in Singapore.
“...Homosexuality is illegal in Singapore, and now, Lee Kuan Yew’s grandson is taking the lead,” said a netizen with the username Tired and Humorous.
Another netizen added: “Gay love is still love, homophobia is a disease.”
Comments on the WeChat posts also noted how the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Singapore were subject to a law that criminalises sex between gay men.
“It turns out that Singapore is so traditional, it can lead to a conviction,” said one user named Facecover.
The Drum Tower, another user, added: “Singapore’s anti-same sex law was set by the British colony, but now the UK has legalised same-sex marriage.”
Li Huanwu had gone public about his partner more than a year before the wedding. In 2018, he and Heng appeared in a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender campaign titled Out in Singapore. Both had also attended Pink Dot, an annual celebration to support the LGBT community in Singapore that year.
Li Huanwu’s father, Hsien Yang and his sister Lee Wei Ling are estranged from their eldest brother and current Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong because of a dispute over their father’s wishes to have their childhood home in Oxley Road demolished. Huanwu’s elder brother Shengwu, a Harvard University economist, is also facing contempt of court charges in Singapore.
In his book Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going published in 2011, the elder Lee, who retired from government that same year, said that homosexuality was “not a lifestyle”.
“You can read the books you want, all the articles. You know that there’s a genetic difference,” Lee said.
“They are born that way and that’s that. So if two men or two women are that way, just leave them alone.”
Earlier, in a book The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew, published in 2007, Lee was quoted as saying: “If in fact it is true, and I have asked doctors this, that you are genetically born a homosexual – because that’s the nature of the genetic random transmission of genes – you can’t help it. So why should we criminalise it?”
