COMMENT: Why controversial pro-377A guide and Lawrence Khong is skewing gay debate
Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.
Following the leak of a LoveSingapore document advising church leaders on how to mobilise supporters for Section 377A, chairman Lawrence Khong has come out to (once again) assure us all that he is not a homophobe.
“We are not against people. Not even people who practise alternative sex,” he wrote in a statement to the press.
[Pro-377A guide is available in full here.]
According to Khong, he and his fellow pro-377A campaigners are merely concerned about the nation, and concerned about families. They portray themselves as the valiant protectors of Singapore’s “silent majority” and “moral law”.
But it’s all merely an illusion. LoveSingapore is a religious organisation, determined to influence Singapore – a secular Singapore – with their ideology.
“Our core values shape our dream to TURN this nation God-ward,” their website says. “In a nutshell, since its inception, LoveSingapore is all about God's greatest glory seen through a life changed, a church revived, a nation transformed, a world evangelized.”
Khong has also made similar statements.
In a society as diverse as Singapore, how can -- and should -- such an organisation ever claim to represent a majority, silent or otherwise?
This could perhaps explain why LoveSingapore’s leaked guide also tells its readers to obscure their religious affiliations. It asks that church leaders do not use their church or religious rankings, and to use their personal email addresses rather than church ones. It wants its supporters not to be identified as coming from religious motivations, but to give people the impression that they are all simply concerned Singaporeans.
It’s highly disingenuous, robbing the public of the chance to consider their voice for what it is: an extremely vocal conservative Christian organisation aiming to influence policy and legislation with their particular brand of morality.
Their claim that it is “not against people” is also laughable. Khong and LoveSingapore have been obsessed with the issue of gay rights for a long, long time; perhaps spending far more time thinking about gay sex than gay people themselves do.
They claim not to be “against people”, yet are ultra-sensitive to anything that might help a gay person.
They have been campaigning hard for the retention of 377A, portraying themselves as under siege from “homosexual activists”, when the truth is that it's the equal rights advocates who have the uphill battle here.
They are so worried about any possibility of treating homosexuals with equality that they have pretty much begun campaigning against same-sex marriage before the conversation in Singapore has even gone that way.
Even the Health Promotion Board’s FAQ on sexuality was too much for them. Any presentation of information – however backed up it might be by science and respected international organisations – that does not label homosexuality as an abomination is unacceptable for Khong and LoveSingapore. They are not “against people”, but they would deny said people access to information that could provide support and even save lives.
They are not “against people”, but Khong has no problem lumping homosexuals in with wife-beaters, murderers and paedophiles.
“Hate the sin but love the sinner” is a common enough religious teaching. But this is not what's happening in the case of Khong and LoveSingapore.
One cannot campaign so hard and for so long against the rights of gay people and still claim not to be against them. One cannot say things that are inflammatory and prejudicial against gay people and still claim not to be a homophobe.
Opposing the right of gay people to live and love as they want to is to be against them. Opposing the right of gay people to information on mental and sexual health is to be against them.
The issue of gay rights is an important one. Public discourse is important.
But we cannot let Khong and LoveSingapore dominate the discussion with their misrepresentation and prejudice.
Related posts :
Guide is not against gays but to support Section 377A: Lawrence Khong
Singapore church publishes controversial pro-377A guide
Gay couple in Singapore in legal battle to repeal Section 377A
