Gay Singaporean wins right to adopt child

His son was born through a surrogate in the U.S. and is now five years of age

Gay marriage is not permitted in Singapore and sex between men remains illegal.

A gay Singaporean man on Monday won the right to adopt a child he fathered via a surrogate in the U.S., in a landmark court ruling for the city-state.

Gay marriage is not permitted in Singapore and sex between men remains illegal under a law that dates from the British colonial era, though it is rarely enforced.

In the latest case, the man first inquired about adopting in Singapore but was told that a homosexual couple was unlikely to get permission. He found a surrogate in the U.S. who agreed to carry his child for $2,00,000.

A son was born and is now five years old. The man, a 46-year-old pathologist who has not been identified, brought the boy back to Singapore and applied to formally adopt him, in the hope of securing him Singapore citizenship.

A district judge rejected the initial application in December last year. But he appealed to Singapore’s High Court, which ruled in his favour.

Delivering the verdict, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said that “the evidence has demonstrated to us that it is very much in the interests of the child that the adoption order be made”.

But he noted that the decision was related to that particular case and should not be viewed as an endorsement of what the man and his partner had done.