LEE

SINGAPORE (Reuters):

Singapore's parliament decided on Tuesday to keep a ban on sex between men, with the Prime Minister saying the city state should keep its conservative values and not allow special rights for homosexuals.

"Singapore is basically a conservative society ... and we want to keep it so," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a rare speech to Parliament.

The chamber passed a bill on Tuesday for an amended penal code that kept the ban on sex between men, but included other changes such as legalising oral and anal sex between heterosexual adults, a spokeswoman at the home affairs ministry said.

Approval of the bill came after an impassioned debate in the chamber on whether to legalise sex between homosexuals, with one parliamentarian reading out a petition signed by thousands of people in favour of scrapping the British colonial-era ban.

The petition said it was unconstitutional to criminalise private and consensual sex between men.

The majority of parliamen-tarians, however, disagreed and Lee appealed on Tuesday to Singaporeans who want to scrap the ban not to "force the issue".

"Homosexuals should not set the tone for Singapore's society. Nor do we consider homosexuals a minority ... with minority rights protected under the law," he said.