Singapore's highest court ruled on Wednesday that the country's sodomy law, known as Section 377a, is constitutional, the Straits Times reported.
The law has been on the books since the small Southeast Asian nation was a British colony. The ruling came in response to two lawsuits; one brought by the couple Gary Lim and Kenneth Chee, and another by Tan Eng Hong, who was charged under 377a after being arrested while having sex in a public restroom in 2010.
A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal upheld lower court rulings that held that the petitioners' claims that the law was discriminatory must be resolved by the legislature, not the courts.
"Whilst we understand the deeply-held personal feelings of the appellants, there is nothing that this court can do to assist them. Their remedy lies, if at all, in the legislative sphere," the judges ruled.
