Inconsistency in the Religious/Secular divide
To what extent should religious values be reflected in secular public policy? I’m not making a stand here, but wondering out loud.
”If in fact it is true, and I have asked doctors this, that you are genetically born a homosexual — because that’s the nature of the genetic random transmission of genes — you can’t help it. So why should we criminalize it?” MM Lee’s own words in 2007.
The conservative family values has often been cited as the reason why.
Yet we see an inconsistency.
Abortion is immoral under most Christian interpretations, as well as Muslim / Jewish interpretations.
I’m not as familiar with other religious, but I suspect religious which promote vegetarianism, mercy, not taking the lives of even animals, would not exactly be supportive of abortion.
Yet we have one of the most lax abortion policies here — something I applaud, because banning abortions has always led to the dangerous practice of clandestine abortions.
Human embryonic stem cell research is also deemed immoral by some Christian interpretations — yet we actively pursue such research in Singapore.
Gambling and casinos are frowned upon by most “conservative value” champions, but we’re building 2.
So what is the justification for criminalizing homosexuality? And only MALE homosexuality, but not female homosexuality???
Is is justified to base such policy on the “majority’s views”?
If it were, the genocide of the Jews in Nazi Germany would be justified.
In a local context, the anti-racism laws were put in place at a time where there was a lot of racial tension here, and many people held racist views. The government response was not to say
“Our society will not reach consensus on this issue for a very long time to come. The way for ABC-race to have space in our society is to accept the informal limits which reflect the point of balance that our society can accept, and not to assert themselves stridently as ABC-race groups do in the West.”
The government took a strong stand at that point in time to condemn racism , and put into the pledge “regardless of race, language or religion”
The homophobic / anti-discrimination groups are divided according to the same divides Singapore had during the race riots. Why should the response be any different?
The only difference, to me, was that the race riots were significantly more violent — does society change only in response to violence? That would be very sad indeed, because I want to believe that dialogue, not violence, is the way to go to assert your fundamental rights.
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I suspect religious which promote vegetarianism, mercy, not taking the lives of even animals, would not exactly be supportive of abortion.
I am a vegetarian. While I would take measures to avoid abortions in my own life, I believe in respecting others’ perspectives in making their own life decisions. I think my views are similar with many Buddhists/Taoists (the majority religious group), which are often the silent moderate majority. [Yes, I am one of those silent moderate majority that "came out of the woods" to resist the encroachment of the right-wing Christians in the recent AWARE saga.]
I support policies that provide women with informed options and support, and respect their right to choose. I have married relatives who made the difficult decision to abort due to poor family financial situation (conceived before sudden retrenchment in the previous recession) or high-risk baby (foetus with severe congenital defects). It is a difficult decision for those involved, tainting it with religious guilt (and worse, if policies change to include legal implications) does not address the root problems.
“because banning abortions has always led to the dangerous practice of clandestine abortions.”
Yes, those who push for banning abortions do not realise that they are pushing to have blood on their hands for the potential increase in lives lost and long-term health implications. Not to mention forcing families into financial misery, especially in this “you-die-your-business” meritocratic society.
I guess homosexuality is a touchy issue with the mainstream because, for one thing, it involves sex. Sex is not just practised between 2 people in love with each other. It’s also engaged for pure pleasures and basic desires, quite devoid of love and romance.
I can empathise with the humanistic and compassionate views as applied to genuine homosexuals truly in love. But it feels uneasy when you consider that complex libidinous side of it. Will it be like opening a floodgate? Will normal people start to seek such sensual pleasures too, once it becomes legally “normal”?
And the next thing it’s touchy is to do with the context in which homosexuality can be accepted. It will be complicated with many different views. Will it ultimately become like the liberal west with their vocal lobbyists aiming for same-sex marriages, with adopted children (who will be affected in upbringing)? Or it can remain more like how we extend compassion and understanding to people with congenital abnormalities?
There seems to be many wide-ranging effects from here on. We need to take care of both the libidinous-sexual aspects, and context-and-extent aspects.
The way society is now, I think Singapore needs to go for balance and pragmatism, instead of diving into such divisive contentious issues. Just my humble opinion.
>> But it feels uneasy when you consider that complex libidinous side of it. Will it be like opening a floodgate? Will normal people start to seek such sensual pleasures too, once it becomes legally “normal”?
It’s called prostitution, and yes, it’s been around for a long long time already. And ‘normal people’ participate.
>> And the next thing it’s touchy is to do with the context in which homosexuality can be accepted. It will be complicated with many different views. Will it ultimately become like the liberal west with their vocal lobbyists aiming for same-sex marriages, with adopted children (who will be affected in upbringing)? Or it can remain more like how we extend compassion and understanding to people with congenital abnormalities?
Studies show there aren’t any differences if kids are raised by gay parents, as opposed to straight ones. Here’s a link:
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20051012/study-same-sex-parents-raise-well-adjusted-kids
Being homosexual is not the same as having congenital abnormalities. The comparison is frankly insulting. Being homosexual is normal (for some people). Being straight is normal (for some people).
We can have balance and pragmatism, and still discuss the issue. Why the false choice?
Yes J, the sensation of homosexuality is normal to the people involved.
The “abnormal”, or well maybe “missing” (or other better word, if you may), part of the condition is their lack of reproductive chances. And I’ll take care to add, this doesn’t put a discount on their value as individuals. It’s just an objective biological fact.
I think raw nerves are already being tingled here on this point alone. My feel is that the envelope is being pushed very far beyond humanistic concerns. The ultimate assertion seems to be : the normalcy of condition is unquestionable, and it’s to be promulgated to all.
It’s scary when the envelope is pushed thus. I believe most can settle more easily on the humanistic concerns. That’s the practical balance – to live and let live. To go further, contentions will naturally arise, and balance (in the context of emotions) will be out.
Unless everyone can agree to keep raw emotion under check, which isn’t likely. And please pardon me if I touch another nerve, on a big scale, these contentions doesn’t serve us any material good. Yah, I know I sound very materialistic..
The ‘normalcy of condition’, has been established by scientific studies over the past decades. I don’t think it’s considered unquestionable, it WAS questioned, and a conclusion has been come to. If we can agree on this, I don’t see anything wrong with it being said so – if it’s normal for some people, there shouldn’t be any problem teaching that it’s normal for some people.
Your idea of ‘live and let live’, I feel, has more to do with maintaining the status quo, in other words ‘don’t rock the boat’ The current situation, which homosexuals are not ‘legally “normal”‘, as you have put it, is not humanistic.
I think the “live and let live” can only be taken so far.
I could “live and let live” with a hostel room mate who is a vegetarian, and I suppose my vegetarian roommate could also “live and let live with me”
I could “live and let live” with a hostel room mate who worships bozo the clown, and believes bozo tells her it’s immoral to walk in high heels, and vice versa.
But I can’t “live and let live” if the State legislates that we should all be vegetarians and not were high heels, whether or not we worship bozo the clown.
I think this “live and let live” prinicple is fine and good in accomodating diversity of opinions and individual practices.
But when the state legislates that homosexuality is illegal, I would say that the people who support such legislation DO NOT “live and let live” — because the whole definition of legislation is to STOP certain people from living the way they want, that is not harmful to anyone else.
It’s a falehood to believe that as long as the State does not go around locking up homosexuals, then we are all fine.
When educational programmes targeted at reducing unjust discrimination or safe sex becomes illegal based on this law, I think that legislation does great harm. If society continues to “live and let live” with such unjust legislation, what’s really being done is “oppress and let oppress” or “bully and let bully”
As for this “harm”
“lobbyists aiming for same-sex marriages, with adopted children (who will be affected in upbringing)”
If we are going to be consistent with this principle of disallowing people to have children because their child might be adversely affected by the parents, then where are we going to draw the line?
Can I say that all women above 40 should not be allowed to have children because the Down’s Syndrome rates would be so high?
Or that people with a family history of cancer should not have kids?
Or that people who’s household income falls below the 10th percentile should not have kids?
Or people who have anger management issues should not have kids?
Or people who think that kids should go for 5 tuition classes a week, have no TV, and must go to elite schools, should not have kids?
Or people who cannot accept the possibility of their child being gay, should not have kids?
There are all kinds of lousy parents, and alot of it we can propbably predict to a fairly high accuracy too. Why target homosexual people based on that principle?
Oh, I think emotions are running high here. I better scoot after this..
Being colour-blind is congenital. It’s harmless, but “problematic” (in place of abnormal?). Some professions disallow people with the condition. To be fair, we can change the colour scheme, use extra identifications, and educate the rest to come to terms with the new arrangements. We can then talk about the new status of colour-blindness on the same footing as color-non-blindness.
But does that make it “normal” as how science understands biological vision? Physics still says red is x frequency in the EM spectrum, while green is a mix of x and y, and so on. Objective science won’t yield its harsh stand that statistically vision is expected to be such and so in a normal individual. Yet, we can’t deny that colour-blind people feels as normal as anyone else when they appreciate a beautiful scenery crafted by powerful nature over eons.
And well.. from wiki, same-sex marriages started since 2001 in Holland. I’m inclined to think there isn’t enough time and candidates, in the short span of barely 8 years, for developmental psychology to start a new chapter yet. But it’s just my hunch.
These are some little morsels of food crumbs for thought, for anyone who’s interested to deliberate on the matter. No offence.
I can understand the humanistic concerns in this matter. That compassion and understanding is required for these individuals. As is similar for other congenital conditions. Though some won’t agree with that comparison, sorry about that..
But I can’t really understand the radical whitewash prescribed in the liberal west – that it’s completely normal, as normal as humanly possible. That’s a strange way to go.
Which is a rational balance, which is a pragmatic course? Ok, I’ll scoot.
The example used of ‘colour blindness’ is rather interesting. As Anonymous has argued, colour blindness is harmless (generally) but it is also problematic in that colour blindness is a disadvantage in some situations (for example, the inability to discriminate colours that may be used in an application for work). However, only individuals born with congenital colour blindness feel normal about not being able to discriminate certain colours. Some people become colour-blind because of accidents; such people probably do not feel “normal” (i.e. not functioning in the same way as before). So, saying that colour-blind people can feel as “normal” as non-colour-blind people has to be qualified in this sense.
Secondly, the use of the word ‘normal’ has some problems. What is normal? Perhaps normality can be defined as that which is statistically common; so the statistically infrequent are the “abnormal”. However, in a statistical distribution, this should apply to both ends. Take IQ for example, individuals whose IQs are low are considered abnormal. How about the individuals who have very high IQs (those considered ‘gifted’, for example)?
If I take this approach a little further and apply it to homosexuality and heterosexuality, I would perhaps frame it like Kinsey did with his Kinsey scale, and place exclusive homosexuals and heterosexuals at the ends of the scale, which corresponds to the statistically infrequent (i.e. the abnormal). In the middle of the scale with the most number of people would be the bisexuals, individuals who are equally homosexual and heterosexual! Of course, I personally feel the real situation is not as simplistic as this.
Moving on from there, I would rather discuss homosexuality, and heterosexuality, in a more objective biological approach (which includes an evolutionary perspective).
So, indeed, due to the nature of homosexuality, individuals who are homosexual usually do not prefer to procreate as do heterosexuals. This is not to say homosexuals cannot procreate; they can, and they do (for various reasons), but many do not. Despite this (although I readily admit there is probably no good way to verify this), homosexuality persists in the population.
[Tangent: some can argue that homosexuality is a choice and lifestyle and thus learned, and so this "behaviour" persists. However, critics can probably point to anecdotes that some homosexuals come from communities or environments where public homosexual behaviour is rare or tightly suppressed. Where do they learn such behaviour from? Also, physiologically, some individuals are sexually aroused by images of other individuals of the same sex, and are not aroused by images of individuals from the opposite sex. These probably point to homosexuality as innate rather than learned.]
Well, if homosexuality persists in the population despite not being selective for reproduction, this could be due to a selective advantage for having homosexual individuals in a population despite them not contributing to reproduction per se. This could be due to genetic/hormonal mechanisms that give rise to homosexual individuals in successive generations, and these mechanisms are active in heterosexual individuals (since homosexual individuals do not reproduce as a general rule). So, a “lack of reproductive chances” does not mean homosexuals are thus selected against evolutionarily.
Back to the congenital abnormality issue. Evolutionarily undesired traits tend to be selected against, and many organisms that inherited such traits tend to die before they have a chance to reproduce, thereby passing on such detrimental traits on their offspring. Colour blindness is a trait that may or may not be detrimental. My bet is it’s not detrimental, and may have some advantages in some situations. After all, not all animals can distinguish colour like human beings, and many are “colour-blind” to some extent if we use human beings as the standard. This argument goes for homosexuality as well. I am inclined to think homosexuality is an evolutionary consequence that is not undesirable, and this can be supported by many studies in animal behaviour.
Whether or not most people can come to accept this as ‘normal’ is another issue all together. However, it does seem jarring to me that many conservatives (to be more specific, Christian conservatives) like to use the ‘nature is against homosexuality’ argument, yet provide very poor support for such an argument.
(Apologies for the lack of actual citations. I wrote this off the top of my head without having done proper research.)
hey anonymous, don’t scoot! i like hearing your views, thanks for commenting!
i think the main difference between “congenital conditions” and “left/right handedness” or “sexual orientation” is this:
they all may share a genetic component, but what differentiates them is the harm that they cause to the person.
So people with “congenital conditions” have a condition that causes them pain and suffering
While homosexual people or left-handed people have a condition that does them no pain and suffering that is intrinsic to the condition.
Thanks Ed
Regarding proper references/research:
I wrote a paper for an undergrad assignment once on evolution/ why homosexuality continues to be a selected trait. While my paper is probably not a recommended reference, the references cited in there are probably a lot more reliable and authoritative. Anyone who wants to check them out, feel free to download
http://www.geocities.com/mathia_lee_yu_chun/EvolutionHomosexuality.pdf
Thanks Mathia, though you’ll have to be mindful some of my views’ll be jarring.
Anyway, this evolution topic’s quite interesting too. And being the TV-science buff, I can’t help this.. let me see..
One point – a single trait can have differing advantages depending on the environment. At the extreme, the same thing can even be devastating to survival. So,it isn’t absolute. It’s all very relative.
Example, dinosaurs are masters of the air, land and sea once, while the smaller mammals trod between hideouts. The populous dinosaurs were very successful compared to their pitifully small and sparse neighbours.
One fine day, the sky turned black and it rained ashes (at least, some evidences show this). The sturdier of the little critters could survive on small snacks, and hide in narrow crevices, while the big dinosaurs became history. So, diversity helps when changes come along.
Another point – a gene need not be expressed. It can be suppressed by a dominant gene. I think we all carry recessive (defective?) genes to a certain degree. But these being recessive, we live in oblivious bliss, and pass them to some of our progeny.
Once in a while, a surprise comes when cupid’s “random” shuffling deals a child with a pair of identical recessive genes. Then the recessive trait’ll be expressed.
If you notice, inbreeding produces a lot of recessive traits. Example, European royalty used to marry within their high and mighty circle, the other royalties around there. Well, there aren’t many to go around, so recessive traits tend to show out.
Another possible example.. pedigree dogs. Most of them either have some ailments or a weak constitution (if I’m not wrong). I think many dalmatians (is it a pedigree?) are deaf (any dog lovers to clarify?).
The jarring part.. well, maybe I’ll leave the inference to yourself. But whatever it is, life isn’t just about congenital influence. Well, maybe to the insects who live only a few hours to breed.
But to us, it’s definitely much much more than that.
Hi Anonymous, I think alot of biologists would agree that biology/genetics contribute to sexuality to a certain degree (just like everything else!)
To what degree, and with what mechanism, well, the jury is still out.
That said, whether or not there should be laws criminalising a certain behavior, does NOT depend on this behavior being “natural” or “learned”. One could argue that the tendency to commit adultery is determined by our genes (the drive to procreate), yet that’s certainly not condoned by the marital laws. On the other hand, if I choose to walk on my hands for the rest of my life, it is a very abnormal learned behavior, yet it’s not criminalised because it harms no one.
So at the end of the day, I think the law has to be based on this question of “harm”. Same with discrimination — it’s unfair to discriminate if it doesn’t even harm you.
The point of my posts which show how homosexuality is a “natural” trait was really just meant to show how the one commonly used argument wasn’t even based on a proven fact.
After the ramblings – yup, life can deal a poor hand to some, but as mentioned, it’s not absolute and not the be-all. Anyway, there’s still the roulette table. Just joking.. IR coming.
Ramblings aside, I’d like to reiterate: homosexuality is still as per my view. Compassion and understanding for those with this genuine uncontrollable condition, rather than an awkward and elaborate relabelling that can have wider and unpredictable repercussions.
And my opinion on the happenings in the liberal west.. a new brazen civil religion seems to be shaping, called human rights. It’s carried with unseeing passion rather than thinking logic, so anything else is heresy to the zealots. Even caning your own child can be punishable. Crazy, isn’t it?
Anyway, the bigger part of me is still for pragmatic balance……
“And my opinion on the happenings in the liberal west.. a new brazen civil religion seems to be shaping, called human rights. It’s carried with unseeing passion rather than thinking logic, so anything else is heresy to the zealots. Even caning your own child can be punishable. Crazy, isn’t it?”
I think there have been many instances of kids being whacked for trivial reasons.
My own mum only recently admitted that she may have overdone it (she has anger management problem actually) and seriously, she does cane very hard indeed. I used to go to school with red cane marks on my limps when she was really pissed with me.
It is carried out with “unseeing passion rather than thinking logic” as 1 abused child, is simply one too many. If you have been through what I have, i think you will agree this ” new brazen civil religion seems to be shaping, called human rights” is not crazy but a necessity.
Me too Trev
I think those of us who’ve been through it know that we always remember the punishment but never the crime……. which makes you wonder how effective that was
its like in the past, hitting wives was a natural thing, and to suggest to a man you can’t do that seemed crazy………..
The whole idea that hitting a 5 year old was ok is a perversed product of our culture…….. just because its been so entrenched doesn’t mean it ought to be continued
Hi mathia,
Recently, my mum apologised to me for beating me senseless in the past. She admitted that as she was hit by her mum whenever she did anything wrong, the ONLY way she knew how to educate me was the so called traditional way — CANING!
“The whole idea that hitting a 5 year old was ok is a perversed product of our culture…….. just because its been so entrenched doesn’t mean it ought to be continued”
Seriously, just because whacking kids silly ensure that they become obedient monkeys, does not mean that it is the right thing to do.
Whether it is a “pragmatic balance” or not, i dun think abused kids like me will think that it is any sort of balance, nor do the abused think of it as something that is right and should be done.
perhaps only misguided and “traditional” people will think so, seriously, i think we need to re-educate more than half the nation
Whether something is “natural” or not is not a proper basis for criminalising it.
Anti-gay activists argue that kleptomania is inherent, yet we still prosecute kleptomaniacs. (Of course, they conveniently forget that kleptomania is often a *mitigating factor, even if it doesn’t get the defendant acquitted.)
However, at the same time, “unnatural” methods of prolonging life and fighting disease are not criminalised. It would be… somewhat *absurd… if we jailed cancer patients for consenting to “unnatural” chemotherapy. Many reasonable people would be justifiably outraged if we outlawed such “unnatural” behaviour.
Why then, this double standard when it comes to “unnatural lust”?
Some human rights proponents may be using excessive means to reach their ends. But that doesn’t mean that the whole human rights agenda is bad. One doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
For instance, just because communists screwed up doesn’t mean we ignore *everything Marx had to say. We owe our labour unions, better working conditions, state-subsidised services etc directly or indirectly to him.
I intend to clarify my point on the means and ends of the human rights movement. Just because the ANC resorted at times to violence does not mean that their aim of abolishing apartheid was tainted by that violence.
The “pragmatic balance” argument is appealling, but it is not the be-all-and-end-all of arguments. We still have to consider other factors.
Forgive me if the following hypothetical sounds glib. Perhaps if we had to choose between caning our children and flaying them alive, we could strike a “pragmatic balance” by shooting them.
It sounds ridiculous, certainly. Still, it shows that one flaw in the “pragmatic balance only” approach is that it fails to consider just *what we’re balancing, and *why we’re even choosing to balance at all.
Got this from A/P Michael Hor’s article “Changing Criminal Law- Singapore Style” (Chapter 7 in Part 2 of the book “Lives in the Law”). It’s good reading for all interested parties:
“Even the offence rationale begins to wear thin, when the government in, so
to speak, the same breath declares that it will not enforce the law for private and
consensual homosexual conduct – for would not the publicly declared non-enforcement
of the law be equally offensive to the “many” who would be offended
by homosexual activity and presumably by the repeal of the law? One might
have thought the relevant offence to be the activity itself, and such a declaration
of non-prosecution must surely be meant to be acted upon by those who
are inclined to do so. The offence rationale strains to breaking point when one
notices that “gross indecency” has not and has never covered female homosexual
activity. It is a curious lot these “many” offended people are – offended by male
homosexual activity but not female, satiated by the mere existence of a law which
will not be enforced. If another straw on the camel’s back were needed it is the
apparent lack of offence concerning the enticement of a married woman from
her husband, that other ancient offence which is to be repealed.”
Hope you like =)
“It’s a falehood to believe that as long as the State does not go around locking up homosexuals, then we are all fine.”
Agreed.
Moreover, might i point out that our so-called “non-enforcement” policy can be changed overnight?
Let’s put it another way. Say the government criminalises being left-handerd. That government then declares that it will not “proactively prosecute” left-handers.
This is unacceptable for various reasons, but the 2 most immediately relevant ones are:
1.) Left-handers are still labelled “criminals”, despite not harming anyone by being left-handed.
2.) The government retains the power to lock these “criminals” up any time it wishes. A sword of damocles hangs over the head of anyone who writes with the “wrong” hand. As far as i’m concerned, our law on abuse of process is still not very well-developed.
I could go on and on, but i hope this got through to you all.
Yup Dan, that’s one very big sword…hahah
Taking your argument further – it has not been tested yet – but if someone (out of malice etc) complains hard enough, the police would be forced to take action against that poor left-hander (which I am one)…
@ xtrocious:
Welcome, my left-handed brother… wahahahhaha