I Don’t Like It So You Also Cannot Like
An Indian high court made a landmark decision last week which overturned a 150-year-old British colonial era law criminalising homosexuality. India, with millions of people unoccupied after dinner and eager to hit the streets to protest against anything imaginable, seems ready for such a decision. Singapore, according to those who make the decisions, is not ready yet. Yes. In some areas, we’re just not very concerned about being No. 1. We are not even worried that we have fallen behind India.
It all has to do with the majority of Singaporeans being heterosexual - which is a good thing or our birth rate will fall even more disastrously. Fine. If 90% of the population are strictly vegetarian and find the consumption of meat totally unacceptable, why not make it a crime to eat meat?
Huh? Yao mo gao chor ah?
Mo.
Law Minister K Shanmugam: “A majority of Singaporeans are still very conservative and say that this is totally not acceptable. So, the Government has to respect both sides.”
Conservative? If we are more conservative than a gay in the Tang Dynasty or the Renaissance, then something must be very wrong - with us. Are there more conservatives in Singapore than in India? India doesn’t have a larger majority of heterosexual people than Singapore? In fact, any country in the world would have an overwhelming majority of heterosexual people over homosexual people, just as every country in the world has an overwhelming majority of right-handed people over left-handed people. If the majority of us can’t tolerate left-handedness for one second, why not criminalise left-handedness? Is that what “respecting both sides” is all about?
Here is what respecting both sides is all about. 19th century writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall once said: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
How about: “I’m happily heterosexual and I disapprove of homosexuality, but I will defend to the death, your right to be homosexual.”
Apparently, conservative Singaporeans are not quite ready for that.
