The Singapore censorship board has banned a volume of "Archie" comic book featuring a gay marriage.
Legalizing same-sex marriage has been the topic of many heated debates and it seems like even the very popular comic character Archie Andrews cannot avoid criticism while dealing with this subject.
Censors at Singapore's Media Development Authority (MDA) have banned the sale of one volume of the "Archie: The Married Life" series because it featured a same-sex marriage. Officials said that the ban was implements after the board received complaints about the book from the public. The book is available at public libraries run by Singapore's National Library Board (NLB) but officials say they will now review the publication after learning about the ban.
The ban has rubbed the comic book publishers the wrong way. According to them, the ban makes no sense.
"Obviously, we do not agree with Singapore's decision to ban such a key book in our publishing catalog," Archie Comics publisher and co-CEO Jon Goldwater told The Hollywood Reporter in response to the news. "Archie: The Married Life v3-which reprints the now-classic Life with Archie No. 16-is a milestone issue featuring the first gay marriage in comic book history. We stand by that story now as we did when we published it."
News of the book ban comes only days after publishers revealed that Archie will die by taking a bullet while trying to intervene in an assassination attempt on his friend Senator Kevin Keller, the first openly gay character of the comic.
Archie Andrews is not the only one that has been exiled in Singapore on the bases of homosexual content. Earlier last week, Singapore's National Library Board said it was to destroy three children's books seen as being pro-homosexual, including penguin story "And Tango Makes Three".
Nearly 400 people had gathered on Sunday in protest, while local writers also condemned the move as an exercise in "book burning" and censorship. Three authors resigned as judges from Singapore's main literature prize in protest against the move.
Singapore has tight rules on censorship, banning Playboy magazine and blocking dozens of websites in what it has described as "a symbolic statement of the types of content which the community is opposed to".
Not all members of the governing People's Action Party (PAP) share feel that homosexual content should be banned.
"I do not believe homosexuality falls in the category of issues which should be excluded," said Hri Kumar Nair, a PAP member of Parliament in a Facebook post titled Pulp Friction, according to Economic Times.
