ST Forum: Stick to a traditional family-based Singapore (Jul 11)

July 11, 2007
Stick to a traditional family-based Singapore

MR JANADAS Devan's article, 'Can mum, mum and kids make a family?' (ST, July 7), suggested that Singapore should, in the long run, come to accept homosexuality on the basis of statistics, genetics and helping Singapore become one of the creative cities of the world.

To cite the example of a lesbian friend who is observed to be in a stable relationship with a same-sex partner, and who are loving parents to well-adjusted children and are model citizens and then invoking demographics to suggest that homosexual behaviour is more prevalent than one thinks do not make it acceptable.

This line of argument, taken to its logical extreme, suggests that one day in the future the world should also come to tolerate and accept other alternative lifestyles involving loving relations between consenting adult siblings or parents and their children (with adopted children thrown in to
avoid defective genes being transmitted) when they become demographically prevalent.

Positive examples and high statistics cannot be the factors by which we decide what are acceptable, in the same way that negative examples and low statistics do not make the same behaviour unacceptable.

Raising the possibility that homosexual behaviour may be proven in future to have a genetic basis as a reason for acceptance is gaining ground, given that even Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has articulated this line of argument recently on two occasions.

If that happens, should we believe that those with the same DNA (as in multiple births) containing the 'homosexual genes' would all necessarily turn out to be gay? Should we not then take the argument to its logical conclusion and suggest that God is to be blamed for implanting defective
genes that caused the many degenerative diseases and medical conditions?

Many, Mr Janadas included, have seized on biblical passages selectively to question the Church and its beliefs. The same Lord Jesus Christ that Mr Janadas quoted in the article also said on the same occasion that he affirmed all the Laws that had been laid down in the past and one of them
included God's abhorrence of homosexual practices, as stated in the Old and New Testaments.

If actively catering to talented and creative homosexuals is critical to Singapore's desire to become one of the most creative cities of the world, this Singaporean would rather pass and stick to a traditional family-based Singapore.

Alex Tan Tuan Loy