Source: Raw Story

Malaysia's state-run news agency is urging its readers to avoid homosexual sex and masturbation if they want to remain free of swine flu.

An article published Sunday by Bernama, the Malaysian government news agency, singles out homosexual sex as an activity that can cause people to contract swine flu, while also emphasizing that "normal sexual union between members of the opposite sex was absolutely safe."

Quoting a Dr. V. M. Palaniappan, the article states that homosexual sex "caused the body to develop friction heat which in turn, produced acid and made the body hyperacidised."

"Ah, yes," writes Michael A. Jones in a blog posting at Change.org. "It's only the homosexual sex that causes friction heat. Must be all that dance music we listen to while getting it on..."

Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country. But while many countries with bans on homosexuality rarely apply such laws, in Malaysia prosecution of homosexual acts is common.

Last month, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was put on trial for sodomy, in a case Ibrahim says was politically motivated.

He was also prosecuted for similar "crimes" in 1998, when he was removed from the post of deputy prime minister and given a nine-year prison sentence for consensual homosexual sex. He served six of those years before an appeals court overturned his conviction.

The news service Bernama was established by an act of the Malaysian Parliament in 1968. The agency's "content and views are decidedly right-leaning and pro-government," according to Wikipedia.

-- Daniel Tencer