How should Hong Kong courts rule on the constitutionality of gay sex?

Abstract

"As the Hong Kong (HK) court held that certain Crimes Ordinance provisions which provided for a different age of consent were unconstitutional in August 2005, a large part of the presented paper no longer seemed very relevant. However, the court did not discuss if cultural relativism and Confucianism were relevant in the judicial analysis. The following seeks to answer this question. This paper casts doubt on a general cultural relativist argument, as, for example, advocated by Dr. Joseph Chan. If this is wrong, homosexuality may still be compatible with Confucianism, the influential school of thought in HK, because I) the latter can be “re-interpreted” to protect homosexuals‚ interests and II) other Confucian places take homosexual rights more seriously than HK." Show more