Setting it Straight

Ugh I found out that the site I get my articles from clear the archives... I've changed the URL for this one, I hope the others won't expire any times soon. Anyways, here's the review:

Category: Societal Issues

Source: Former Methodist bishop calls for greater respect for homosexuals in Singapore

May 11, 2007, The Straits Times

The film Brokeback Mountain that projects the complex emotional, sexual, and romantic relationship between two men, won several Academy-Awards and was a box office success. Does this show anything about the society’s attitude towards homosexuals in this new age? There has been a question recently raised by MM Lee about the ban on gay sex, which has awoken the majority of Singaporeans that have kept mum about this issue.

In our multiracial and cultural society, I do not feel that Singapore, being a highly conservative society, is ready to accept such openness, evident from the aversion of this issue of gay rights that was present before the question was raised by MM. However, due to the increasingly thriving gay scene in Singapore, this problem can no longer be disregarded.

The question at hand is perhaps not the decriminalizing of gays, but the proliferation of the gay agenda in our society if homosexuality becomes accepted as it is observed in America and many European countries. The reality is, no one knows what people do sexually behind closed doors and the majority of the population can accept homosexuals as friends and colleagues. The problem is whether we can allow this to become part of our culture, and allow our next generation to think that it does not matter whether one is heterosexual or not.

There is no country or religion in the entire history that has advocated or encouraged homosexuality in any form, whether as a lifestyle or it being nature. While giving greater respect to gays as human beings is reasonable, accommodating gays in our conservative society will mean compromising the healthy social values and norms, or at least those that government has tried to sustain. This is a critical impediment that authorities will take into account, as it undermines the canons of the society and religions.

Personally, although I feel that homosexuality is not a natural course of things, homosexuals should still be given their basic human rights, assuming that it is not a matter of choice or inclination on their part, but that they are genetically orientated. People may not be willing to accept their behaviour or orientation, but they are part of the society after all, and I do not think that being born in this way makes them criminals, and we should not ostracise for being the way they are. However, condoning this sort of behaviour does not equate to advocating this kind of lifestyle, but instead it means that we should try and discourage and suppress homosexuality as a lifestyle, while keeping discrimination of gays at bay.

Ulitimately, I, or in fact we are not in a position to judge, as all of us might probably hold some prejudice against gays. Not having known any gays, I should not determine how they live life based on my generalized image of them, and place a final judgement of them, on whether they should be accepted as part of society, or whether they ought to be condemned.

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