Following the recent letters and the past conversations that have been given by the anti-gay factions, you would have noticed some common themes and arguments given by them. Some of these I have already addressed
here. The issues were the medical arguments, the religious arguments and the family argument. For the legal preliminaries of the 377a ongoings, read
here.
After reading some forum letters again I feel that there is an even greater need to address the family unit argument that is always put out in their defense. Summarizing the entire argument is Ms Lim Poh Suan, who wrote to Oct 17 Straits Times Forum.
I SUPPORT the retention of Section 377A of the Penal Code - a law criminalising gay sex - to uphold our moral and family values.
The petition by Nominated MP Siew Kum Hong does not serve the interests of Singapore as a whole but only of one small sector.
In fact, the removal of this law will lead to the disintegration of our social fabric, the family unit, which the Government has been establishing pro-actively.
I believe that strong families will lead to a strong nation.
I fully support the Government in keeping Section 377A. Gross indecencies must be penalised.
For the survival of our nation and the welfare of the future generation, the petition by NMP Siew should be ignored.The family argument has always been put in this manner: Allowing gay people to have sex will destroy the family unit, therefore we should continue to ban gay sex. This simplistic argument stops there.
This argument ignores the fact that gay men are part of the family unit that they speak about. That every gay men has a mother, has a father, has a family. Regardless of the law, the gay men will still continue to be part of this family. And so what family unit are they talking about? What family unit are we protecting? Are we protecting families without gay people?
Look at 2 different scenarios: Scenario A is the ‘family’ that does not accept their son to be gay, they hate it, they are angry. They force their son to go for therapy (which there is none, as a psychology student, I ASSURE YOU), they constantly have fights because they can’t see beyond their hate, their anger and their ‘face’. Because they think that it is deviant. That society doesn’t accept, and then they quote you the law and the arguments that have always been used. Is that a family unit that the anti-gay faction is looking for?
Or Scenario B, a family that after some blood and tears, come to accept their gay son for who he is, and continues to love him for who he is, not who they want him to be. They enquire about his boyfriend, sends Christmas greetings, talks about their future. And when the son feels overwhelmed by the societal discrimination, all they can do is to stand by their son and say that things will slowly change.
Which is the family unit that the anti-gay factions want? One that will tear people apart, or one that ties the family together? Keeping the law will only further deepened any societal discrimination, because at the end of the day, ‘symbolically’ speaking, gay sexual acts are still criminal. Now if you are saying that you can be gay and not have sex, you must be kidding yourself, if nobody had sex, you would not even be reading this today.
Moving beyond the micro-level of family unit argument, is that the social fabric argument, which also centres around the family argument. The anti-gay faction love to use the word social fabric will be torn, as if society is a tangible material that can be ripped apart, this is philosophically known as the false concreteness. But that is beyond the scope of this argument.
How the society is being torn apart however is never mentioned, and it still leaves me wanting to ask how does it happen. How does allowing gay sex causes society to fall apart? The last time I checked, USA is still a super-power, Hong Kong still exist, so does China, and the European countries. Now it is easy to say that, ‘Well they are a different society”. But wouldn’t that be biting their own tongue when on one hand, it is argued that allowing gay men to have sex will tear the social fabric, but on the other it only appears that it will tear Singapore’s fabric.
The next thing that is commonly forgotten is that with or without this law, gay men have always had sex, and will always continue to have sex. And that makes the entire argument fall flat, in a very unglam way. Since the building of Singapore from 1965 till now, gay sex has always been around, and has our fabric been torn?
One last very commonly heard argument is that, well I don’t want my son to see gay men and be gay. Well darling, if just by seeing another gay men makes your son gay, then I feel very sorry for your son. Suddenly I wonder if all our film censors are gay, lesbians, murderers and paedophiles, because they have to watch the film to censor it no? Also, I am sure some of you out there might know a gay friend, you have seen at least some gay people on screen, are all you reading this now gay? Again this logic falls flat. What about other behaviors then? When we see dogs walking on all fours, do all of us who owns and live with dogs start walking on all fours? Here again, we see that the anti-gay faction’s argument account only in ONE specific example and cannot be applied to anywhere else. As a theory, it has got to be the worse in the world. I am not even to ask if the entire UK, USA, China, Hong Kong or Australia is gay. Because well they’ve allowed gay sex.
Beyond all this abstract arguments are very real people, very real emotions, and very real families. For all the anti-gay people out there, do you actually personally know what some gay people go through? To Pastor Derek Hong who asserted that gay people are not discriminated, does he know any gay men who have been? Does he even know any gay men who have not?
How many of us really know what some gay men go through? Behind the smiles that may be sometimes put up, do we really know what the family situation is like? How many families truly love and accept their gay son?
Gay men have families too.
