I read on The Online Citizen that FCBC (Faith Community Baptist Church) and the LoveSingapore network of churches are joining Muslims in protest of the pro-LGBT Pink Dot event, through the Wear White campaign spearheaded by Muslim religious leader Ustaz Noor Deros. Lawrence Khong was quoted as posting on his Facebook page the following paragraph:
“I’m so happy that Singapore’s Muslim community is making a vocal and visual stand for morality and Family. I fully support the ‘wear white’ campaign. FCBC, together with the LoveSingapore network of churches, will follow suit on the weekend of 28 and 29 June, island-wide. I look forward to celebrating the Family with the Muslim community and I am pleased to partner with them in championing virtue and purity for the good of our nation!”
I won't mince my words. I find this offensive in 2 primary ways. I'd expected more from a religious leader - especially a prominent one such as Lawrence Khong.
1. First and foremost, the very concept of morality is nebulous and controversial. The two primary schools of thought classify morality as "innate, universal, and biological" and "socially constructed, acquired, and learned". Any way you slice it, it does not justify the moral policing exercised by Lawrence Khong. He posted that the Wear White event/campaign/movement denotes making a "vocal and visual stand for morality", strongly implying that the anti-LGBT movement is moral, and thus by induction, the opposite must be true (that pro-LGBT causes are immoral). If morality is indeed innate, universal, and biological, and there is a divergence of attitudes toward LGBT, who is to play judge to decide on the "correct" morality? And if morality happens to be a social construct that is acquired and learned by individuals of society, the preponderant outlook and opinion need not necessarily be the correct one. After all, cultures differ across space and time. Again, who is to play judge to decide on the "golden standard" of morality?
2. Next, there appears to be an inherent asymmetry in objectives in the pro-anti-LGBT conflict. The pro-LGBT movement merely calls for acceptance, or in their words, the support for the freedom to love (freely), as quoted from their website title. It is not pushing for a conversion of heterosexuals to alternative sexualities. On the flipside, what the anti-LGBT movement (or to be specific, the one seemingly championed by Lawrence Khong) ostensibly demands is for the pro-LGBT campaign to be quashed. Lawrence Khong has publicly proclaimed his support for Section 377A. Granted, he has clarified that:
“We are not against people. Not even people who practise alternative sex. We are against any attempt to take down a good moral law of the land which our government upholds and which the silent majority wants to keep.”
But his clarification is fundamentally contradictory - he claims to not be against the people who live alternative lifestyles, yet wants their practices to remain illegitimate and criminal (a direct consequence of not abolishing 377A).
So, on one hand, the pro-LGBT movement is asking for acceptance and support; whereas, on the other, the anti-LGBT movement is going beyond the direct opposite and is garnering support to crush the movement and thereby keeping alternative lifestyles illegitimate.
Yes, the Singaporean society is diverse and plural, and yes, there is freedom of belief and religion. Consequently, ideological clashes are inevitable. The freedom isn't free, though. It costs tolerance. In order to live in harmony in a society where every member is free to pursue his religion and belief, there has to be mutual tolerance, if not understanding. There is no place for bigots here. Bigotry and diversity are fundamentally incompatible.
Sudo Nyme
*The writer blogs at http://literallykidding.blogspot.com/