377A - Phanton Menace 4

Oh dear, Tommy Koh used the “W” word. 

He said he believes that the Court of Appeal’s decision about 377A is wrong. “I hope that the Court of Appeal will overturn its 2014 decision if it is presented with an opportunity to do so.”

He cited his good friend, Prof Walter Woon, saying that there is a difference between a sin and a crime. 

This is the former Att-Gen’s view: “He said that many regard adultery and fornication as sinful but they are not criminal behaviour. He concluded that sodomy may be a sin but it should not be made a crime. He is also unhappy with the compromise of retaining 377A and not enforcing it because it brings the law into disrepute.”

If you need a summary of Tommy’s position, here they are: -

“First, the scientific evidence is that homosexuality is a normal and natural variation of human sexuality. It is not a mental disorder.

Second, Section 377A is an antiquated law, and not supported by science, and should be repealed.

Third, Singapore is a secular state. It is not a Christian or Muslim country. The leaders of those religions should respect the separation of state and religion and refrain from pressuring the Government to criminalise conduct which they consider sinful.

Fourth, the Court of Appeal should overturn its 2014 decision and declare 377A to be unconstitutional.”

It tempting to wonder at this point whether Tommy and/or Walter will be called to be expert witnesses (that is, constitutional law experts) for the coming challenge to 377A by a local DJ? 

Now, the society is clearly divided, if not already so. And we have 377A to thank. 

The irony is that 377A has united different religions, but it has also disunited those religious groups and the other groups that the various religions considered as sinners. 

If there were ever a time where sin had divided the people with such alacrity, it is this time with the aid of 377A. 

On one side, the gays are to be blamed. On the other side, the self-righteous believers are to be blamed. 

Any middle or common ground they might have is currently drowned out in this widening divide as it widens even further. 

Yes, there is an overarching goal for the believers when it comes to sodomy laws (which our state has enacted laws to criminalise those acts, for example, if people - hetero or homo - caught in public having sex or masturbating each other, they will be prosecuted. That much is how far our secular state would criminalise morality). 

But when it comes to enforceability of 377A, the state is not going to do anything when gays hold hands in public, kiss in public, and then retire to their private bedrooms to consummate their love for each other. 

That much the state is not going to criminalise. It is only morality as far as it is logical and practically feasible (and culturally acceptable). 

In the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, when he deemed the Texas law criminalising sodomy was unconstitutional: -

“The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”

But, be that as it may, the Christians and Catholics are worried that 377A will open the floodgates of promiscuity and moral perversion should that fang-less section be repealed (notwithstanding the other sections which of course do not differentiate whether you are gay or not). 

As it is, their concerns are genuine from their point of view. This is the long laundry list of the gay movement. 

The gays have agendas and they are fiercely political, economic and globally driven. Many top corporate leaders are gays. Some political heads openly announced their civil partnerships. 

And now, they are prosecuting the Christians for their stand against selling them cakes, officiating their wedding and reading the Bible in schools. 

And mind you, many have lost their jobs for taking a stand on their beliefs. That’s not just illegal, but criminal for the gays.

But, isn’t this worse in some middle eastern countries, and even China where the provincial officials in the name of harmony and order (and ungrounded paranoia) are burning crosses and shutting down underground churches? 

And let’s not talk about Christians being hunted down and murdered in the name of other religion in other religiously straitjacketed countries. 

Alas, with a twist of irony, isn’t it the strangest that of all the sexual perversions, chastity is the worst because in that name of purity, in the name of possessive fear, in the name of control, we are prepared to kill, steal and destroy to keep ourselves spiritually and religiously chaste (so to speak)?

But of course, I am deviating from the point. And my point is the looming Christian fear (whether we admit it or not) and the aggressive gay agenda (whether they admit it or not). 

On the believers’ side, we are afraid that we may be losing ground to the gays because they appear to be not just coming out of the closet, but making the world their closet. 

Now, let me just say that that is a reality I do not want my children or their children to live in. 

But my other concern is on the unintended consequences on two fronts, that is, the polarisation created by 377A at the current moment may result in the further deepening of the wedge and thereby sabotaging all our genuine efforts to reach out to them, and the unintended consequences on the other front concerning the growing anxiety (whether founded or otherwise) arising from a floodgate of immorality when 377A is out of the way, to make way for same-sex marriages, bestiality and paedophilia. 

How do we then strike a healthy and positive balance then? This is worth exploring...

In the end, we have to ask, is it a question of rendering to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and rendering to God what belongs to God?

That is, should we just let the legislature do their job as they are elected to do, and let believers do their job as Christ had ordained us to do? 

Ultimately, we should also ask ourselves, is a dog without its teeth a better guardian and testimony of our faith than the one who was stripped of all to be hung on the Cross?

That answer is obvious I know, but sometimes, what is obvious becomes seemingly oblivious when we go from one extreme to the other. 

In other words, there is a palpable risk that this may turn from a question of faith thingy to a question of control and fear thingy? Is there more intolerance in our earnest drive to become more tolerant?

Here, as I end, I recall a saying that the world is like a global spiritual kindergarten and millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God (or right actions or purity) with a wrong set of blocks. 

Alas, it may just be the case here of the “bewildered infant syndrome” for this is not just an uneasy but fast becoming unhealthy compromise between the government, the believers and the gays.

In other words, this may just be too much of a knee-jerk-reactive plucking of the low hanging fruits, thereby leaving the more effective and enduring solutions still hanging untouched up there.

Just my thots. Cheerz.