Dealing with some of the arguments regarding section 377A

Once in a while you get such a flawed comment that I just have to make an example of them by doing a full reply in a blog piece, just to show you how the internet has allowed people who do not have the sense to put together a cogent argument the opportunity to have a say, whilst exposing themselves as totally ignorant, racist and homophobic at the same time. Have a look at this comment I received in one of my previous pieces on section 377A.

CommonSense4 December 2013 03:42

You don't have to argue against christianity, it's just common sense. A family unit is made up of father and mother, if the law 377A is being repealed, I am 100% sure LGBT next step will be to challenge for recognition and rights in the society. And they will promote same genders parenting as a good family unit. So let me ask something, how can father be mother and mother be father. How will the child be able to differentiate what is man and woman? From education or experience? I dare say the western culture has fallen, in terms of their society or economy. If we allow this so call rights to prevail on following their culture, in no time Singapore's economy will go down.

What makes a family?

I think the best way for me to deal with this is by bullet points, so we can separate the various issues discussed here.

1. No, you don't have to be Christian (or religious even) to be homophobic, as you have just demonstrated. Bigotry is not just limited to religious people, as you have demonstrated, you're not just homophobic, you're also racist and you've achieved all that in one paragraph without any reference to a religion.

2. A family unit is defined by the way a family chooses to define itself - it can include any number of people such as uncles, aunties, cousins, grandparents, not to mention step siblings and step parents, even non-blood related close family friends. This is the modern age where people get to decide whom they are close to, whom they wish to include in their lives and how they wish to define this unit they call 'family'. There are also families which have lost one or both parents through death, divorce, separation and other circumstances, so they do not fit your traditional and simplistic definition of father + mother + child(ren). Your definition is way too simplistic to take into the complexities of modern life.

What is best for this young child?

3. The LGBT community are asking for an end to homophobic discrimination - they are not looking to redefine gender roles in society or trying to tell others how they ought to raise their children as parents.  That is a choice entirely for each parents to decide for themselves, how they wish to bring up their children. What has happened in the West is simply that the governments which have embraced equality have simply allowed people to get on with the way they organize their family units and the vast majority of families in the West are still pretty much follow the heterosexual model - allowing gay people to form their own families and have children.

Giving gay and lesbian people the right to eat at the same dinner table does not alter the definition of dinner at all. Allow gay parents to get on with their lives do not in any way infringe on the rights of straight parents to raise their children, within their own families, in a way they decide is the best for their children. You should have enough faith in your ability to function as parents without having to resort to discriminating against anyone else in order to be a good parent to your child(ren). Go back to basics - when was the last time you asked yourself what makes a good parent?

4. I was brought up by very traditional heterosexual parents in Singapore who were teachers - oh the bastions of Singaporean morality. Neither their heterosexuality nor the fact that I had a mother and a father changed the fact that they made many fundamental flaws in their parenting techniques - as a result, I spent most of my teenage years estranged from my parents and it was only moving away to another country that allowed our relationship to normalize to the point where we are no longer fighting all the time. I suppose both my parents and I have mellowed with age - I recognize how difficult it is to bring up a child and why they totally failed in communicating with me on so many levels.

There are plenty of us out there who like me, had heterosexual parents and still ended up estranged from their parents, unable to get along with them. Being heterosexual does not guarantee you being a good parent, having both a father and mother present doesn't automatically mean you will have good parenting techniques - parenting is so much more complex than that. It doesn't just automatically happen when you have a child - you need to take the time to learn the art of nurturing a young mind and be willing to invest the time and energy to understand what is best for the child. Parenting is not easy - no one ever said it was!

Do Asian parents always make good decisions or do they fuck up badly at times?

Frankly, whether a parent is gay or straight, married or divorce, so much that determines whether or not s/he is a good parent depends on factors like whether s/he knows anything about being a good parent to begin with! You're making an assumption that all heterosexual parents are somehow good parents and that is a very wrong assumption to make. A child is far better off with caring gay/lesbian parents who take a keen interest in nurturing their child, then clueless straight parents who have terrible parenting skills and have no idea how the hell they should bring up their child - it is really that simple. You should be focusing on the parent-child relationship, not the sex lives of the parents.

5. Children will learn how to differentiate gender roles through a variety of means. When an infant is under 2 years old and yet to begin any kind of education, the infant is usually only exposed to the immediate family unit. By the age of 2 or 3, the infant will be sent to some kind of playschool or nursery, where the young child will start interacting with teachers and other infants. By the time the child is in kindergarten, the child is already spending quite a number of hours in the company of others, away from the immediate family unit. Indeed, by the time I was in say primary two, not only was I spending long hours at school, I was already watching TV and movies as well. As I got older and my language skills improved, I read newspapers and magazines and in this day and age, children will be able to access so much information on the internet. It is amazing they actually do listen to their parents at all in this context.

Many young people are very influenced by the information they access online.

At the age of about 2 or 3 years old, the parents have a huge influence over the child - but as the child gets older and older, the amount of influence a parent has over a child diminishes rapidly with each passing year as more and more sources of information and education comes into the child's life. As the child becomes increasingly literate and interested in the world around him, he will start to make various choices for himself, form opinion that are different from his parents'. Such is the nature of parenting - a parent can never dictate to a child what s/he must think, a parent can only guide the child through this process and hopefully exert a positive influence on the child.

Indeed, by the time I got to about 8 years old, I realized that given time, I was going to become far more educated and smarter than my parents ever would be. This was hardly surprising since my parents didn't have the kind of excellent education I benefited from. I had seen the way my mother treated my grandmother who was barely literate and didn't have much of an education: I knew that one day, I would be in the same position and I promised myself I would try my best to be tactful, knowing that I owed my education to my parents. Heck, my the time I got to secondary one, my mother couldn't help me with my homework as she didn't understand half the things in the secondary school syllabus.

As a teenager, my parents couldn't understand most of the magazines I read.

My point is simple: children have multiple sources of information and as children become more and more educated over the years, they become more and more capable of forming an opinion over issues in their lives. Their parents are just one source of information and influence in their lives - however, the parents are competing with other sources of influences in their children's lives: their teachers, their peers, their idols (dare I mention Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus?), the internet and social media. Let's not overestimate the role of the parents in this process.

6. Has Western culture fallen, both in terms of their culture and economy? That's complete rubbish. Let's look at China today - the world's rising economic superpower. Both in terms of the economy and culture, China's so busy copying the West they are practically kowtowing to Western culture. They are not showing the West and alternative to capitalism, hell no, Mao Zedong tried that remember? But after he died, Deng Xiaoping embraced western style free market reforms and started liberalizing the Chinese economy, turning it into the economic superpower it is today by following a path that has been taken by Western economies years before. Sounds like you need to revise your modern Chinese history as you are unclear about what happened in China since WW2.

How well do you know your modern Chinese history?

Is the West busy coping China if their culture is so superior? Hell no, despite China's obvious economic might today, hardly anyone is bothering to learn Mandarin in the West. It is the Chinese who are desperately trying to learn English to speak to the rest of the world. It is extremely rare to find a white person in Europe who is fluent in Mandarin, yet it is almost expected that any well educated person in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore should be totally fluent in English. It is clear that the West has well and truly succeeded in this form of linguistic imperialism, where they have managed to get the Asians to speak English to them, so they don't need to bother with learning Asian languages. Heck, I am now blogging in English for my Asian readers and not Chinese or Malay.

Need I go on? Western singers like Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Madonna, One Direction and Robbie Williams have sold millions of records in the Far East. How many Far East Asian singers have actually achieved any level of success in the West? Just one: south Korean superstar Psy, when his single Gangnam Style went viral. And really, he has only had two singles chart in the West: Gangnam Stlye and Gentleman. Compare that to say the success of Lady Gaga in Asia, it is clear that Asians are still too busy kowtowing to the West culturally and the West are barely noticing Asian culture (apart from Psy). One did think that after Psy's success with Gangnam Style last year, he would pave the way for other Korean, Japanese and Chinese artistes to break into the West, but that simply has not happened (yet).

Need I go on? Oh yes I will and I will rub your face in it. Let's talk about movies. Go to any cinema in Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore or Hong Kong and look at the ratio of Western movies to Asian movies - even in these big Asian countries, you will find that over half the films are Western films (especially in Singapore) and the biggest film to date (both original and 3D re-release) in China is Titanic. So much for Zhang Yimou's classics eh? The Chinese public much prefer Leonardo and Kate's fairy tale on the Titanic to anything locally produced in China. Now let's go to any big cinema in London, Paris, New York or Sydney and see just how many Chinese, Korean or Japanese movies there are? You'll be hard pressed to find any at all, unless it was some special Asian cinema festival - otherwise the western cinema going public simply has no interest in Asian films. So has western culture fallen or is it still kicking Asian culture big time in Asia? Get real and open your eyes.

Am I done with you? No I am not. Let's look at consumer goods - walk into any high end mall in Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei or Singapore and it is full of Western brand names: Gucci, Lanvin, Prada, D&G, Chanel, Fendi, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton and Versace, just to name a few. I could go on. In fact I will: Hugo Boss, Bvlgari, Paul Smith, Tiffany & Co., Burberry, Nike, A&F, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ted Baker, Giorgio Armani and Guess - is that enough for you? Now let's walk into the equivalent shopping malls in Berlin, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Manchester and see if there are any Chinese designers in there? No, there are none. Can you even name some of the more famous Chinese fashion brands? How about Ping He, Ma Ke, Chris Liu, Henry Lau, Masha Ma and Titi Kwan? Never heard of them? Me neither. Oh and Jimmy Choo doesn't count - he achieved his success in the UK and doesn't live in Malaysia where he was born (and there's really nothing Chinese about the shoes he designs).

There are virtually no Chinese brands in the malls in the West, despite many goods being made in China!

7. In terms of the economy, sure many countries around the world (not just in the west) have been affected by the recession. Greece is probably the worst hit of them all. China on the other hand, has been experiencing robust economic growth whilst the rest of the world is stagnating and struggling. Let's look at the GDP per capital (nominal) of Greece and China, let's see how they compare.

Greece: $23,100 (2012)
China: $6,100 (2012)

Wait a minute. Isn't Greece supposed to be such economic turmoil? Isn't China supposed to be booming, prosperous and so rich it is taking over the world? Why are the figures still showing a country like Greece to be so much richer than China then? There is a simple explanation. It depends on where you wish to focus. In Greece, yes there are people who are unemployed and angry with the government - they have been rioting in the streets and these riots make the headlines. However, the vast majority of Greek people are still working hard, in gainful employment and carrying on despite challenging circumstances and their GDP per capita reflects the majority of these hardworking Greeks. Likewise in China, sure there are plenty of rich people in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou - but when you look at the bigger picture, there are many more Chinese people in the countryside, working for far less money and do not have the kind of living standards that the urban rich in China enjoy.

Who has the money in Greece and China?

If you wanted to come to the conclusion that the economy in the West has fallen, It is so easy to pick and choose your evidence by focusing on the unemployed Greek people rioting in the streets on one hand and then looking at the urban rich in Shanghai  living a life of luxury. The fact is, some Chinese people may be doing well, but they are a minority in a very big country, where the majority of the people do not enjoy a standard of living that even the poorest Greeks have today - let's get real here.

8. What the hell has LGBT rights have to do with the flourishing of a country's culture or the strength of their economy? If anything, the opposite is true - flourishing cultures tend to be progressive and gay friendly! Some of the cultures that have had the most amount of influence in the world are extremely gay friendly - currently, one of the biggest cultural influences around the world is Hollywood, that movie making machine that is churning out films all around the world. A big Hollywood blockbuster would be seen in every continent by millions of viewers. Hollywood is in Los Angeles, California and California is one of the most progressive and liberal states when it comes to gay rights! When people around the world stop watching Hollywood movies and start watching movies from homophobic countries like Saudi Arabia, Jamaica and Uganda, then perhaps you can draw a conclusion between the flourishing of cultures and gay rights. How can culture and the arts flourish in an intolerant environment where bigotry and hatred prevails?

The country that is undoubtedly the most influential country in the world when it comes to culture is America, thanks to their media industry - it doesn't matter whether you live in Namibia, Thailand, Finland, Azerbaijan or Panama, you'll probably be watching the same American TV programmes, listening to American singers like Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus as well as watching the same Hollywood blockbusters in the cinema. America is actually a very progressive country when it comes to gay rights, with President Obama being the most gay-friendly American president to date.

Likewise, if we look at the same GDP per capita (nominal) list from earlier, within the top 20 richest countries in the world, only 4 out of 20 (Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Singapore) have laws outlawing gay sex and let's face it, if not for their oil wealth, none of these Arab countries would be in the top 20 of that list. If we expand that to the top 30, then only 5 out of 30 have laws outlawing gay sex (add Brunei to that list - another oil rich nation). It makes Singapore unique as the only country amongst the richest countries in the world to still have such laws about gay sex - the richest countries in the world who have built up their economies through industrialization (USA, Germany, the UK, Australia, Canada, France etc) have all very progressive gay rights laws and still enjoy a robust economy.

What has gay rights got to do with finance and economics?

Like seriously, dude? What possible impact can laws about gay rights and gay sex have on issues like industrial production, infrastructure development, funding the public health service, creating new jobs for young graduates, the organization of the financial services sector and managing public debt? You sound utterly ludicrous when you try to link the two issues together. At the end of the day, the laws governing gay rights affect a small minority of the population, the vast majority of the population who are heterosexual will not be affected by it - it's ludicrous to use gay rights as a scapegoat for all the other problems with the economy that need serious, workable solutions. Stopping gay people from marrying or adopting kids isn't going to fix the economy or create jobs when we're in a deep recession.

In any case, being liberal, progressive and gay-friendly is hardly a western thing - there are plenty of Asian countries like Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan and South Korea which are actually surprisingly gay friendly. There are also European countries like Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Poland which are quite homophobic too - trying to portray it as a east vs west dichotomy is just way too simplistic.Even within a progressive country like Spain, there are plenty of homophobic Catholics and ironically, Catholicism is the predominant religion in Spain - yet they have extremely liberal gay rights laws enshrined in Spanish law! This just goes to show how complex the situation is and how ridiculous it is to try to make this a East vs West dichotomy.

You know, I could go on exposing just how ignoring, ill-informed, bigoted and foolish you are, how your entirely argument is based on bigotry, racism and ignorance rather than any solid evidence. Hey, but if I went on kicking a man who is down, that would descend into bullying. I believe I can already here my readers saying, "Alex, you've made your point, now stop it before it descends into bullying - it is not nice to make fun of stupid people." And thus this shall be where I draw the line as I believe I've done my job. This should suffice for now.

As usual, I do always any comments or questions from my readers - but don't be surprised if I actually do respond to your comment when you do leave one. I love reading and replying to your comments.