It’s Gay Pride month around the world and in Singapore, it’s the month that Pink Dot SG falls in. This is the time when the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) Community gets to celebrate being just that.
Pride is one of those events that stir passions. As much as the LGBTQ community feels the need to celebrate being who they are, there is an equally passionate group of people ready to denounce the month as a symbol of everything wrong with society. I am, of course, talking about the more extreme religious community.
Homosexuality (for the sake of argument, this term will be applied to the L’s, B’s, T’s and Q’s as well as the G’s) has always been a contentious topic. The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity and Islam denounce it as a perversion of God’s work and if you were to ask most straight people what they really felt about homosexuals, you’ll find that they think of the homos as a little strange (as a heterosexual guy, I can’t imagine how any “normal” guy would prefer a guy’s anus to a girl’s c***t).
Feelings against homosexuality are such that homosexuality is illegal in any part of the world where the political class needs to show its religious credentials. Being a homosexual is, for example, illegal in Saudi Arabia, a country which hosts the two most sacred sites in Islam.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in most parts of the Western world in the last century (from the 1930s onwards) but despite legalization, the topic of homosexuality still arouses passion and conflicts. In the USA, for example, you had bakers who got sued for discrimination based on sexuality and then counter-sued for being discriminated against based on religious beliefs, all because they refused to bake cakes for Gay People who wanted to get married. More on the history of decriminalization can be found at: https://www.humandignitytrust.org/lgbt-the-law/a-history-of-criminalisation
In Singapore, the topic of homosexuality becomes exceedingly contentious whenever the topic of 377A, or the criminal code that criminalises anal sex between men comes around for discussion. The religiously inclined, led by Professor Thio Li-Ann have argued fervently to keep the section, despite the fact that three former Chief Justices, a former Attorney-General and one of our most respected former diplomats have all pointed out that there are simply no sound legal arguments for keeping the section (What does it say that we give the weight of the words of a professor who has only practised law in academic fantasy land to the weight of the words of three men who practised the law at the pinnacle?).
As a result of trying to keep the peace between these warring factions, the government, which prides itself in being about “Rule of Law,” has taken the view that “legal ambiguity” is best. The section of the penal code remains, but the government assures the LGBTQ community that it will not actively enforce the law. Hence, Singapore, which takes pride in being the most secular and forward-looking society in the region, is the third most regressive place for homosexuals in the region (after Brunei, Malaysia and Myanmar, a country that has been made famous by brutal military regimes).
The issue of homosexuality is going to be with us for a while, and I’m going to leave the intricacies of the debate to intelligent people. However, what I will say is that I struggle to see what the fuss is all. As mentioned, I am a heterosexual guy, and I can’t imagine how any “normal” man would prefer a guy’s arse to a girl’s c**t.
My personal preference is for the girl’s privates, and that would remain true whether 377A existed or not. It does not affect me personally if a man preferred to f**k a guy’s a** over a girl’s c**t and did it with another guy who was able to give consent in the privacy of the bedroom.
For me, there should be no need to have a “Gay Pride” month. Why do the LGBTQ community need a month to celebrate being proud for simply being who they are? As Professor Thio Li-Ann argued in her 2007 speech in parliament, “As fellow citizens, homosexuals are entitled to expect decent treatment from the rest of us; but they have no right to insist we surrender our fundamental moral beliefs so they can feel comfortable about their sexual behaviour.”
However, while Professor Thio is correct in what she says, she forgets that she is making the case for Gay Pride. In her determination to keep homosexuals from entering sexual relationships with their chosen partners, she is denying them a fundamental right that the rest of us take for granted.
Professor Thio has rightly pointed out that Homosexuals are in the minority. They are a minority that has been told over and over again that they are a “perversion” or “shame” for just being who they are. This isn’t a case of the minority being different, it’s a case of a community expecting this minority to feel awful merely for being who they are.
As anyone who has been a parent of teenagers will tell you – there comes a point where the teenager decides that they’re going to be whoever they want to be, regardless of what you think. Think of Gay Pride as something like this. People like Professor Thio Li-Ann give Gay Pride meaning to the Gay Community. Gay people grow up with Professor Thio and her ilk repeating the message that they are sinful and awful and when you have the audacity to disagree, you get called militant and terrorist-like.
Unless you’re a repressed homosexual, the only way to make Gay Pride and Pink Dot is for people to look at the homosexual community and say, “So What if You’re Gay.” It’s not a question of what you believe, but how you react to people. The religious majority ingeniously proclaims that they are the discriminated ones, and everyone gets upset with them for wanting homosexuals to be the repressed variety. What they forget is that as the “sexual majority,” they are the ones holding the power, and they should ask what role they had in making Gay Pride so precious and necessary to the LGBTQ community.
A version of this article first appeared at beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com