On 377A Nonsense in the Reasonable Hall of the Sensible Nation

While homosexuals are a numerical minority, there is no such thing as 'sexual minorities' at law. Activists have coined this term to draw a beguiling but fallacious association between homosexuals and legally recognised minorities like racial groups. Race is a fixed trait. It remains controversial whether homosexual orientation is genetic or environmental, perhaps both. There are no ex-blacks but there are ex-gays. ... Diversity is not licence for perversity.
-- Thio Li-Ann, in her argument for the retention of 377A in parliament, 22 Oct 2007

Race is not a fixed trait. There are no scientific evidence that race is a genetic property. But there are racial categories. Health-care scientists use racial categories as approximations since there are correlations between a few diseases and people grouped in these racial categories -- for example, more people who are supposedly racially Chinese are lactose intolerant, which, in any case, may be due to a social factor, in that milk is not commonly fed to children. In other words, racial categories are used for pragmatic purposes, not unlike the use of racial categories by our government for public housing quotas to ensure some degree of ethnic-cultural diversity in the estates. Race is an illusion; scientists have shown it to be so. Race is a historical artifact of Western colonialism which employed a fallacious science to show that the "colored" peoples of the world are less civilized by natural-biological-fixed fiat and should become the white man's burden.

So why is an "Asian", a "Chinese", an esteemed and highly educated one at that, spouting such outdated nonsense in our reasonable hall to call for the retention of colonial-era laws, born of Victorian racist-sexist conservatism, that make it illegal to engage in homosexual acts? Is she guilty of articulating one of the "distracting fallacies that obscure what is at stake" she accuses the pro-repeal camp of throwing up?

There can be ex-blacks. Race was invented to justify exploitation and oppression of peoples, minority or not (the black majority were long oppressed by the white minority in Apartheid South Africa). Before there was black, there were many African ethnicities. These cultural diversities and heritages were wiped out by the extreme dehumanities of trans-Atlantic slavery, and the slaves, identified by their skin color, became simply known as blacks by their white masters. Cultivating generations and centuries of resistance, the slaves developed their own culture and identity, and the slaves in America called this identity black, using the name used to oppress them to fight for their rights against discrimination.

In the fight against discrimination, in any fight against any type of discrimination, the recourse is to a common humanity as the highest morality. In this humanity, there are ex-blacks, ex-whites, ex-Chinese, ex-Malays, ex-Indians, ex-heterosexuals, ex-homosexuals. As an esteemed black man who longed to be ex-black once famously said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". In the ultimate discrimination of the Holocaust, ex-Jews and ex-gays were accomplished by annihilation. Race and sexuality belong to the same domain of humanity and, conversely, the same domain of anti-humanity discrimination.

We should be no less a dreamer in the domain of humanity, because this is the base of our sensible nation. When S. Rajaratnam wrote the sacred pledge of the nation, with the proud words of commitment "regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality", he believed that becoming a Singaporean was a conviction that transcended all divisions by respecting differences among the diverse peoples collected here on this island. As realists as we are, of course, the differences should be respected as long as they do not undermine the nation. The burden is on the pro-retention camp to show with evidence that homosexuals going about their private business in their bedroom are undermining the nation. By the way, "perversity" doesn't undermine the nation but is an artifact of subjective opinion - your emotional disgust is a good gauge not of sedition but of your personal morality.

The majority should prevail? Well, for centuries, the majority of white people thought the blacks and the other colored peoples were savages, and even had commonly-held religious and scientific beliefs to support the status quo of discrimination. You, the handful of vocal representatives who claim to represent the silent majority, have neither commonly-held religious or scientific beliefs, and you are arguing to retain discrimination based simply on a numerical majority with their vague moralities. What happened to your visionary leadership to do the right thing against majority opinion? Ah, that applies only to casinos, ministerial pay and CPF annuities. Perhaps you have estimated the pink dollar and found it wanting? Since when have the People's Action Party retreated from a crossfire?

It is done, history is made and hasn't end, it continues. The abolition of the slave trade was first raised in the British parliament twenty years before abolition became legal fact in 1807, and only after much clever energies expended by the dedicated minority. It took a lot of effort before the sensible nation with its conservative majority led by an entrenched religious and political elite would realize the inhumanities it perpetuated outside its borders. When the inhumanities are at home, the stakes are much higher and the conscious and unconcious blindness therefore deeper. It is going to be a long walk, but I am willing, and it does not matter whether I am gay or not and religious or otherwise, because it is about our humanity.