The Syariah High Court has been criticised for the gag order on media reporting on the khalwat (close proximity) case involving former deputy prime minister Ghafar Baba's second wife and three Bosnian students of the International Islamic University.

The purported reasons for the gag — that it was high-profiled as it involves a very important person and foreign students — have been criticised by DAP chief Lim Kit Siang for unfair differentiation between VIP and ordinary folks, which also (surprise!) drew support from the mainstream New Straits Times .

NST commented that it was only right that criminals — whether VIP or ordinary folks — should be made answerable not just to officials, but also to society by media exposure ('Malaysian daily slams gag order on Khalwat hearing' on Straits Times Interactive , Jan 2, 2003).

This is true. If one has the will and heart to make private sexual improprieties a public crime and prosecution, why is there this lack of will to expose it publicly?

Besides, the Malaysian public has now acquired a taste for sexual scandal. Let us hear more of homosexuality or lesbianism or other unnatural acts. We demand to know what goes on in bedrooms or dormitories. It makes more interesting reading than the bland news reported in the media.

This is the opportunity for us ordinary folks to feel righteous. For even VIP and dignitaries, their wives and teenage children are not above human foibles. Why should we be deprived of this information just because a VIP is implicated?

Some among us who are voyeuristic now also have the golden opportunity to get ourselves recruited among that select group of people empowered by sanctity of law to snoop behind trees and bushes in parks to swoop down on unsuspecting couples.

Maybe we will get some funds to pay bellboys and concierge to tip us on when and where 'close proximity' will take place. For observation purpose, we may even be supplied cameras with zoom lens, and in time to come, hopefully, parabolic dish with antenna to listen and spy as to what goes on in various bedrooms and dormitories.

There is really nothing better than interest and excitement in carrying out one's job especially for the public good. So what if as a result of our enforcement, lives and reputations of even national icons or those who otherwise serve the country with distinction are brought to public odium?

Whatever their accomplishments, even public figures have to observe morality, especially sexual morality. That is why we cannot tolerate a homosexual or lesbian holding high public office.

From the news of 2002, it appears that for 2003 and the years to come, our national morality has improved and will continue to further improve.

A good example is what Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said of the stricter moral values inculcated right at national primary school level. Whereas in the past we had "no problems with girls wearing skirts and boys wearing shorts, especially for games ... (n)ow boys are forbidden from wearing shorts, even for games, and even games are discouraged".

We are fast turning to a morally sanitised society. It is best to inculcate it from the classrooms and enforce it in the bedrooms. Hopefully we will be the most morally upright country in the region, a beacon of light for others to follow to address social problems of Aids, drug and substance abuse, single mothers, prostitution and incest.