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Cheaters website raises hackles in Asia
Extramarital dating website Ashley Madison push in Asia is meeting with some heavy reisistance and has raised social hackles around the region for its promotion of adultery.
In Singapore, its forthcoming launch has been met with staunch opposition, as residents and politicians insist its maxim that “Life is short. Have an affair” is unwelcome in the conservative city-state, local media reported.
In Hong Kong, Reverend Lawrence Lee, the Chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, told the South China Morning Post the website would be harmful to the family as a social institution.
“Without trying to moralise, [the website founder] is treating something as serious as marriage very casually,” he said.
“Family life and fidelity in marriage are essential for the well-being of our society. If you weaken that foundation it is harmful to society.“
“If students were addicted to drugs - would you promote the sale and access to them more easily? Of course not. It is not a justification.
But despite the anger raised by conservative quarters from the Philippines to China and India, Ashley Madison has already made inroads into Asia after its successful launch in Japan - where a million members signed up within its first two months of operation.
The opposition in Singapore has grown vociferous, with a Facebook group attracting over 20,000 likes for a petition that calls on the government to block the website because it could undermine marriages, promote social disharmony, and ultimately “corrupt” Singapore.
Singapore’s minister for social and family development spoke out against the Canada-based website’s planned expansion into the state next year, saying it was damaging to the institution of marriage.
“I do not welcome such a website into Singapore. I’m against any company or website that harms marriage,” Chan Chun Sing said in a Facebook post.
“Promoting infidelity undermines trust and commitment between a husband and wife, which are core to marriage,” he said in the post, which he said was in response to media reports of the planned local launch.
“Our marriage vows make it clear that marriage is a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman. This includes staying faithful to one another.”
Ashley Madison, which facilitates “married dating, discreet encounters and extramarital affairs”, has over 20 million users worldwide and has recently been pushing into Asia with launches in India, Hong Kong and Japan.
The advance into Singapore, a society known for its strict social mores, has also prompted a Facebook petition with a rapidly swelling list of supporters.
The petition, “Block Ashley Madison from corrupting Singapore”, states its objective is to “gather sound-minded people to express our objection to the establishment of the shameless company, Ashley Madison, that thrives on shattered marriages, in Singapore”.
Facebook user Joelle Kong wrote on the site that “we need to send a message to the international business community that while we are happy to have foreign investors build businesses here, companies that promote such anti-family values are not welcome here”.
Another supporter, Jason Ho, wrote that he had personal reasons to oppose infidelity.
“I was a victim myself when my father started having extramarital affairs. It was nothing but hell and tears for the rest of the family members,” he wrote.
“It’s time to stand up together and get rid of the rubbish that Ashley Madison is promoting.”
Marriage is heavily promoted by the state in Singapore in order to increase the country’s flagging birth rate, with government-supported dating services which encourage couples to marry earlier and have more children.
Singaporeans are said to have some of the least active sex lives in the world, with surveys by British condom maker Durex regularly scoring them low on both sexual frequency and satisfaction.
Long regarded as a prudish society, where deviation from social norms is met with disapproval and even punishment, Singapore’s growing affluence and a large influx of tourists and expatriates have helped liberalise attitudes in recent years.
But the government and church groups, however, continue to promote conservative values, and non-heterosexual sex remains a crime despite growing public acceptance of gay and lesbian lifestyles.
The organiser of the Facebook protest, a businessman who has identified himself only as Mr Tan, told Singaporean daily My Paper that Ashley Madison was “a systematic and orchestrated propagation of deteriorating values”.
“We cannot allow (the promotion of extramarital affairs) to become mainstream,” he said.
An update on the page said that the group could “expect the right measures in the pipeline” following the minister’s denunciation of the notorious site.
However it was unclear whether the government could actually block the launch. Mr Baey Yam Keng, deputy chairman of Singapore’s Parliamentary Committee for Communications and Information, said there might be limits to what the Government could do to prevent it, My Paper reported.
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