27 December 2012:
It's time to stop the hate.
My eye candy recently got himself a boyfriend, and from what I see they are certainly very happy together. Yesterday, though, he received hate questions on his Formspring.The first hate question quoted a biblical verse which states 'thou shalt not lie with mankind ...'. And my eye candy got called unnatural. Y'know, these are the people that I thoroughly detest.
To those who don't know, 'homosexuality is quite common in the animal kingdom', as quoted from one article. This page on Wikipedia states out documented behaviours of homosexuality in animals.
Because this first 'argument' (using religion to hate on LGBTs) contains religious references, I shalt not comment further lest say something wrong or disrespectful to any religion out there. Generally, though, I would like to believe that religions teach us to be better people, not judgemental ones.
If I do meet an anti-gay religious person in real life, I would like to ask them what happens to those LGBTs who are not in the same faith as them. Do they 'go to hell' too? Have they sinned? To me, I would think that they have not, since these people do not even believe in the same faith. And if they have not, why do you care so much to condemn and hate on them?
The second question was simpler, calling him a freak. This argument is obviously flawed, because according to Oxford Dictionary a freak is someone with an unusual physical abnormality. LGBTs do not have any physical abnormalities, yah.
The third question was a face-palm. That homophobic arsehole reasoned that if homosexuality can be allowed, then bestiality should be allowed. (In case you don't know, bestiality refers to sexual intercourse between man and animal.)
What the asker is trying to do here is use a logical fallacy. It normally is in the form of 'if we X, therefore we must Y'. However, he did not consider carefully the context of why homosexuality should be allowed but not bestiality.
Homosexuality (referring to human-human behaviour) is between two consenting adults of the same gender. Bestiality is between an adult and an animal. For the latter, there is no way to gauge consent of the animal. Besides, even if the animal shows consent, it cannot be substantiated because animals are unlike humans where we have language and critical thought to express ourselves.
Also, I would presume that most of the times humans are the ones who carry out bestiality. I cannot imagine an animal that actively 'seduces' humans. Maybe during their oestrus cycle they may be a bit horny, but still humans - equipped with a higher-level thought ability - should stop such behaviour.
Next, the asker went on to drag down paedohilia. I don't know why anti-gay people have such a fetish for bestiality and paedophilia. Every time, they would drag it down. In the start of the last century (if I'm not wrong), Britain was considering allowing women to vote.
When the Bill was passed in Parliament, one newspaper then claimed that next time, they would have to allow babies and dogs to vote. I suppose you see how ridiculous it is; the context simply isn't there! Same with the argument regarding allowing paedophilia and bestiality. These two acts are perverse and they do not consist of two consenting adult humans.
There's still a little bit more hate from that arsehole but nah I'm lazy to paraphrase it. But why I typed all the above is not to show how impressive I am in rebutting such things, if I am at all impressive. I'm simply trying to dispel and misconceptions or fallacies held by people. All these contribute to a society that is anti-gay, which I don't think it's good.
If you come to think of it, this current anti-gay sentiment is similar to the anti-black sentiment in the U.S. during the 1960s. Of course, in the former's case there is religious condemnation as well. I don't remember any religion condemning blacks. Things changed for the latter after the Civil Rights March around the same period of time in the U.S.
In some ways this can be interpreted as a social revolution where people were more tolerant of blacks and tried to embrace racial diversity. I would think Singapore has been coping very well since Independence.
Perhaps now it may be a time to embrace sexual diversity. We should be more accepting of people with different sexual orientation, while remaining opposed to those with perverse sexual fantasies such as bestiality or paedophilia.
Something encouraging for LGBTs around the world, a short excerpt from Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of United Nations:
Let me say this loud and clear: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. They, too, are born free and equal. I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in their struggle for human rights.
Being the secretary-general of the United Nations, Mr Ban rightly represents the world as a whole. No doubt there would be countries (like Singapore) with anti-gay laws that would frown upon this declaration, but I shall just say that the whole world has to improve and progress.
By the way, a little titbit. Homosexuality has actually been very prevalent in ancient times. Ancient civilisations like China and Greece had records (historical and literary) of homosexuality in society. According to one source, in fact, homosexuality in ancient China was a thing sought-after.
Why is it, then, that homosexuality seems to be a 'great evil' now, if our ancestors have been practising it since hundreds or thousands of years ago? Most of these happened Before Common Era. Not long after, religion spread to these lands and homosexuality was condemned from there on.
I shall not, and cannot, judge to say whether religion is right or wrong in condemning such an act. Maybe time will tell and society would experience a change in attitude towards LGBTs.
TTFN.