Yes, Indonesia needs to update its penal code, but this is what is being prioritized: Motion to outlaw extramarital sex by expanding the definition of zina (adultery). Motion to outlaw sex and relationships between gay people. Motion to outlaw insults against religious figures; to outlaw discussion on communism; and, finally, to outlaw “unauthorized” advocacy of birth control.

These articles are not law — yet. But many people fear that no political party in the House of Representatives will strongly oppose this absurd draft. A former member of the National Commission on Human Rights has demanded the imprisonment of activists bringing issues on sexual minorities to the fore. He also said political parties that disagree with such requests should expect public scrutiny in the 2019 general election. People’s Consultative Assembly Speaker Zulfiki Hasan claimed five political parties supported same-sex marriage without providing further information, before Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said such support was impossible in Indonesia.

This is a straightforward offering to conservative voters. According to a recent survey by the SMRC research institute, most Indonesians agree that gay people have the right to live here, and that the government needs to protect them — even though most Indonesians agree that religions forbid their right to identify and express themselves as gay. In mainstream media and politics, however, no one champions the rights of gay people, and no public figure publicly identifies as gay.

The draft, however, threatens to criminalize heterosexual people as well, including non-married couples, Indonesians who do not follow an official religion, human rights and public health activists, tourists and foreign citizens, academics and public intellectuals.

This is precisely what the conservatives want: an Indonesia where conservative values rule, where firebrand clerics are feared, where the left-leaning, and even professional journalists and academics, have no voice, and where the birth rate remains high. These conservatives are mostly Muslims, together with military hawks. They count that, at this rate, no political party or population would dare to challenge their demands, lest they would be painted as immoral liberals.

Many Christians are also openly homophobic and agree with conservative Muslims that gay people could destroy Indonesia, whether by God’s wrath — such as through an earthquake — or by turning children gay, therefore decreasing the population of religious Indonesians.

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