Singapore’s High Court has dismissed a case by gay partners Gary Lim and Kenneth Chee designed to scrap the law which bans gay male sex.

LGBT people in Singapore have already said they will appeal the case to the Court of Appeal.

Section 377A of the Singapore Penal Code, introduced when the island nation was under British rule, makes it a crime for men to engage in ‘gross indecency’ with each other, punishing them with up to two years jail. However, the law is rarely used.

The legal claim to the High Court by Lim and Chee made the case that Section 377A was discriminatory and unconstitutional.

But the Straits Times now reports that, in his 92-page judgment, Justice Quentin Loh said the decision on whether to keep the law was best left to Singapore’s Parliament, noting that they had voted to retain it in 2007.

He said the ban on gay sex was a ‘particular long-held social norm’ where change was not yet widely demanded, so the court was ‘hard put’ to decide whether to retain or discard it.

Politicians also appear unwilling to act. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said of the law in January: ‘It’s always been there and I think we just leave it.’

He added that in countries that do not criminalize homosexuality ‘the struggles don’t end’.

The judge had reserved judgment during a hearing in March in another challenge to the law, involving massage therapist Tan Eng Hong. He was charged with having sex with another man in a public toilet in 2010 under 377A.

One gay activist and GSN contact in Singapore said she was ‘disappointed’ but not surprised by the judge’s decision.

She added: ‘It is quite a conservative judgment. The community stand ready to lodge the appeal in the highest court with all due haste. I don’t think we’ve ever been under any illusions that winning will be easy.’