ST Online Forum: Religion's role in gay debate is interesting (Sep 22)

Religion's role in gay debate is interesting

I refer to the article '7 in 10 frown on homosexuality, NTU survey finds' (ST, Sept 20). It is very interesting to note public opinion on this issue.

As the survey found, religion is the primary driving force for the anti-gay sentiment in Singapore. It is also noted that practitioners of the Abrahamic religions hold significantly more negative attitudes.

It is noted that the people surveyed are profiled according to the national population.

Does this imply that the survey goes according to racial lines, according to religious demographics, or both?

As noted above, Christians and Muslims are generally more anti-gay than other religions.

If the survey had not taken into account the religious demographics of Singapore, where the Abrahamic religions do not make up the majority, then the survey may not be an accurate indicator of the social opinion in Singapore.

It is also noted that from the letters addressing the issue recently, the strongly anti-gay have generally been vocal, English-educated and Christian.

Several writers to the Online Forum also involved God in their arguments.

Laws in Singapore are not set according to religious interests. They must remain secular and universal, and not influenced by any religion.

This is of utmost importance as Singapore is a multi-religious society and no one religion must exert its norms or standards on the whole country.

Lester Lam Yong Ling

ST Online Forum: S'poreans need to be more historically conscious and reflective in debate on (Jul 21)

July 21, 2007

S'poreans need to be more historically conscious and reflective in debate on
homosexuality

DR ANDY Ho's article, 'The homosexual debate: Let the religious have their
say too' (ST, July 19), takes the stance that religious arguments should be
permitted to enter into the realm of public and legal discourse, in a spirit
of 'friendliness' '.
This position is problematic. 'Friendliness' involves mutual courtesy, which
is not the stance taken by most right-wing religious groups when it comes to
the gay debate.

Is it possible for a gay person to sit down and have a discussion with a
conservative Christian who has labelled him as an 'abomination' ?

Two more crucial points need to be registered. Firstly, those religious
persons who are most vocal in their opposition to granting gay people any
social space have shouted down more moderate voices within their own
religious constituencies.

One might compare this to the radicalisation of Islam in the Middle East -
alternative views within the same religion are given no credence, and the
extreme position (that violence and terrorism are acceptable expressions of
'faith' in the case of radicalised Islam, and that homosexuality is a social
evil in this case) comes to be regarded as the benchmark of orthodoxy.

Religions in Singapore - Christianity in particular - thus need to be more
self-reflexive about how they have arrived at particular positions on social
issues. There is, after all, no agreement on the issue of homosexuality
within the global Anglican communion, yet the Singaporean Anglican
leadership is firmly on the conservative side.

If the prejudice of a small number of church leaders dictates the overall
position of their congregation, then should that prejudice be allowed to
persist?

Secondly, religions have been wrong on issues before. Global Christianity
has, in the past, drawn on scriptural passages to support the practice of
slavery. Churches, too, were silent on the issue and practice of apartheid.

History has much to teach us. Religions have long been complicit or even
active in the oppression of minority groups, especially when they are the
religions practised by a powerful majority. They gain much from doing so -
by identifying a minority group that they can pinpoint as 'sinful' or as
somehow 'other', they build group solidarity.

The same spirit that condoned racial exploitation today rears its ugly head
in condemning homosexuality.

Such voices should doubtless be allowed to participate in public discourse,
but Singaporeans need to be more historically conscious and reflective, when
it comes to trusting these voices.

Dominic Chua Kuan Hwee

ST: The Homosexual Debate (Jul 19)

July 19, 2007

THE HOMOSEXUAL DEBATE

Let the religious have their say too

People cannot be expected to give up their convictions, so let friendship reign

By Andy Ho

MR BAEY Yam Keng said at a forum recently that if it came to a vote in Parliament, and the whip were lifted, he would vote to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code which outlaws homosexual sodomy.At the end of the forum attended mainly by gays and their straight supporters, the Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar GRC admitted he had been 'talking to the converted'. He lamented the lack of alternative viewpoints on that occasion. Yet if someone had stood up with the opposite viewpoint, the animus would likely have been palpable - especially if he were also religious.

Many who want Section 377A repealed think it is not appropriate for MPs to base political decisions on moral judgments derived from their religion. They must use only secular reasons, they tend to argue.

Conversely, the religious who want the law kept on the books ask if it is fair to discriminate against an MP's moral beliefs just because they are religious in origin.

Both sides, however, assume that they are talking about the same things when they make distinctions between 'religious' and 'secular', on one hand, and between 'religion' and 'morality', on the other. I think they aren't, which is why they might be talking at cross-purposes.

Imagine two people discussing Section 377A - Tom, a 'religious conservative' , and Tim, a 'secular liberal'. Assuming Tim is a dyed-in-the- wool atheist, he thinks of everything as merely an unending here-and-now, since for him there is no Hereafter. For Tim, 'religion' is just a make-believe subset within the larger whole of Reality, which is, of course, wholly 'secular'.

Tom, however, thinks of God as having written a Narrative about human lives and has assigned to people their roles in it, so they should endeavour to play those roles by living well in terms of what we call morals - duty, gratitude, faithfulness, and so on.

Of course, he also holds to a set of precepts that tells him how to do well in life - like studying and working hard, which is practical wisdom, though Tim might call this secular. For Tom, however, both practical wisdom and morals teach him how to live well (in God's eyes), so what Tim calls secular is, to him, just a subset of the religious.

This all means that the secular/religious distinction depends really on who is using which term, so Tim and Tom might mean quite different things when they talk to each other using similar terminology. In other words, the distinction is not a robust one.

What about the morality/religion distinction? Since morality refers to that set of precepts that a Tom abides by because he thinks that is how best to live most pleasing to God, a Tim should logically just junk such rules. For various reasons, however, unbelievers have not found this acceptable.

So they might remake morality in, say, utilitarian terms, noting how morality makes living life together as a community more efficient for everyone in the aggregate, for example. Gratitude means you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

And so on.

Or they could note that the consequences for social life of junking morals might be too harsh. What goes around, comes around, for instance, so it is better to render some kindness when you can.

And so on.

So Tim keeps morals on the cards but uses the term 'morality' as if it can be distinguished from 'religion'. When he does so, Tom is likely to believe on the quiet that Tim's assumption is quite mistaken but, out of civility, tolerates it silently so that unregenerated Tim can act on what he thinks are 'secular' moral grounds.

Tim, on the other hand, also thinks since that is the only kind of moral values we have, and they do seem to serve our purposes rather well, let us just continue to use them and, if that obscurantist Tom thinks morals are actually derived from religion, why not just indulge him?

So while both sides may even agree that public policy should be based on moral values - including those informed by religion - they are not really talking about the same things. And, all the while, they both think they are indulging the other.

(The occasionally religious MP may vacillate between the positions of a Tim and a Tom, which only serves to confuse things even more.)

It seems to me wrong, therefore, to ask if a religious MP should refrain from making decisions (as a legislator) based on religiously derived morals. Given that what is secular and moral to you is always already and ineluctably (a subset of) religious to him, it is not possible for the really religious MP to do so anyway.

How then to go forward?

Instead of asking Tom to desist from religiously informed deliberations, Tim might want to soften some of that animus, stop demanding that Tom resort only to 'secular' grounds and allow Tom to freely participate.

In other words, treat him not as an enemy but a friend for, as Aristotle said, 'when people are friends, they have no need of justice, while when they are just, they need friendship as well; and the highest form of justice seems to be as a matter of friendship'.

When the religious participate in public deliberation, they cannot (be expected to) give up their convictions but the friendly desire to participate most assuredly attenuates their desire to win the argument. Unlike justice that so many modern thinkers insist upon, friendship does not require neutrality - like having both sides to an argument settle on only non-controverted premises before deliberations can even begin.

Friendship seems to be the better path to take if we want to see where the place of religious argument in public deliberation might best be.

Can't we all just get along?

andyho@sph.com. sg

ST Forum: God has a place in public morals debate (May 26, 2007)

ST Forum

May 26, 2007

God has a place in public morals debate

I REFER to the recent Straits Times article entitled 'Is there a place for God in public morals debate?' by Senior Writer Chua Mui Hoong (ST, May 18).

My view is that God cannot be excluded in public morals debate. It is not a matter of willingness.

God is the author of morality in human history. In other words, moral standards and moral values originate from God, in monotheism the Supreme Being and in polytheism, the Supreme Beings, who transcend human beings.

Be it Confucianism which is strictly a value system, Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism, et cetera, all religious faiths that believe in an absolute Supreme Being or absolute Supreme Beings share the common values about sex, family life and procreation, and are against homosexual sex.

There are many other common values shared by different religious faiths.

For example, Buddhism stresses the importance of cause-and-effect relationship in a human life. Likewise, in Christianity, there is this natural law known as 'you reap what you sow'. If we sow the seed of approval for homosexuality, we are going to reap the grave consequences of it in due course.

Medical science cannot offer solutions to all human problems as it deals with only one aspect, the physical aspect, of human life. We humans are not merely physical beings. There is a soul - intellect, emotion and will - and many believe that there is a spirit within us. They cannot be seen under the microscope.

However, just because we cannot prove their tangibility does not deny their existence. Regardless of whether we like it or not and whether or not we have a religion, we are moral beings as we are born with moral instinct, a sense of propriety, known as conscience.

There is such a thing called guilt, which is not imaginary. When one violates his/her moral instinct, one feels guilty about it. Nevertheless, conscience can be distorted if it is given in to depravity of the mind and rationalisation.

Therefore, to people of different religious faiths, to debate and discuss moral issues and morality without God is akin to a little child who wants to be independently responsible for his/her own life and behaviour without the care and constraints of his/her parent(s); no matter how sophisticated and how impressive the arguments may be.

Public laws should not violate the common values of different religious faiths of its people.

Esther Chan Nek Fa (Ms)

ST Forum: Relgion and politics in Singapore already mix (May 25, 2007)

ST Forum

May 25, 2007

Religion and politics in Singapore already mix

I REFER to the letter written by Mr Richard Woo Khiah Cheng, 'Religion mustnot be allowed to creep into or influence politics' (Online forum, May 23).

Mr Woo is correct in his assertion that morality, public or private, neednot be based on a religious background. However, I find it most ironic that he would choose to quote Sam Harris for the judicial support of suspected terrorists and the ethnic profiling of Muslims, or the Ayn Rand Institute whose founder firmly believed that mankind is the be all and end all of morality.

Nations like Russia and North Korea that have once experimented with the ideas pushed by these gentlemen to their logical conclusion find themselvesfacing a humanitarian and social disaster that will take decades to heal.

As Mr Woo pointed out, more than 85 per cent of Singapore are religious orat least profess to be. Presumably a number of ministers and senior civilservants belong to the 85 per cent and their moral views are likely to bereligiously inclined, rather than the principles of secular humanism yet Singapore is not threading on a dangerous path which Mr Woo seems so worried about.

In Singapore's case, leaving the definition of God aside, the public seems to be quite clear and in unison on what God wants on the national level.Religion is mixed with politics in Singapore even if the names are notspoken loudly. Views of the Government on homosexuality, censorship and the family, however, reveal a religious bent to Singapore politics.

Li Jiefeng

ST Forum: Homosexuality - better to educate our young on importance of marriage and family (May 25, 2007)

ST Forum

May 25, 2007

Homosexuality - better to educate our young on importance of marriage and family

I REFER to the letter by Mr David Garcia, 'Is homosexuality wrong?: Three factors to consider' (Online forum, May 22).

I do not know of the teachings of other Christian churches or otherreligious groups, but I do know that in my church, homosexuality and homosexual acts are wrong.

As clearly declared in 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World' issued by The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we have been taught that 'all human beings - male and female - are created in the image of God. Each is abeloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents and, as such, each has adivine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal and eternal identity and purpose'.

I further quote: 'The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Evepertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declarethat God's commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earthremains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacredpowers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman,lawfully wedded as husband and wife.'

This Proclamation was inspired and issued in September 1995 because of theincreasing threat to the sanctity of marriage and family. The complete textcan be viewed at www.lds.org

Many may have argued for decriminalising homosexual acts on grounds that itis widely accepted in other parts of the world. Some have even suggestedthat they add a colourful and intellectual vibrancy to our city.

I do not deny that there are many gays who are highly intellectual andc olourful. But, is that grounds for decriminalising homosexuality?

I would argue strongly against it. Just as there are many high society drugabusers, who are highly intellectual and colourful, should we also legalise the use of drugs in Singapore? I think and hope not. We are all well aware the dangers drug abuse pose to society.

Homosexuality and homosexual acts are no different from drugs. Such actswill slowly destroy families and families are the fundamental unit of everysociety.

There is a Chinese saying; 'First there is the family, then the country'.Instead of decriminalising homosexuality and homosexual acts, we should beeducating our young on the importance of marriage and family. Many of society's problems will go away if we build stronger families.

That said, it does not mean that we should condemn homosexuals. Instead, weshould do everything we can to help them understand the divine nature oftheir gender. After all, they are humans too.

Patrick Tan Siong Kuan

TNP: Homosexuality against biblical teachings (Jul 14)

Homosexuality against biblical teachings

LOVE the sinner but not the sin - this seems to be the official stand of the Christian community on homosexuality.
14 July 2004

LOVE the sinner but not the sin - this seems to be the official stand of the Christian community on homosexuality.

The New Paper yesterday approached the mainstream National Council of Churches of Singapore to comment on the Free Community Church.

Its response was to fax across a statement issued last year which said that homosexual acts are clearly against the teachings of the Bible.

But the council - which represents Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians, among others - added that Christians shouldn't reject gay people or be homophobic and despise them.

Gays should be treated 'no less as persons of worth and dignity'.

The council, however, remained firmly against any action that might promote a gay lifestyle.

It urged the Government to continue to outlaw homosexual acts, and to retain the policy of not allowing the registration of gay societies and clubs, and the policy of not allowing the promotion of a homosexual lifestyle.

This statement was issued following some unhappiness in the community after Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong revealed last year that the Government no longer had qualms about recruiting gays into the civil service.

For Catholics, the Vatican website says the Bible condemns homosexual acts as a 'serious depravity'. But it adds gays 'must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity'.

Dr John Hui, Master of the Catholic Medical Guild, told The New Paper in an e-mail reply yesterday: '...while homosexual acts are intrinsically wrong and not to be condoned, those with homosexual tendencies must be treated with respect, love, compassion and sensitivity, like any other human being.'

He added that as far as he knew no-one has been expelled from the Catholic Church for being gay.