05 May 2007

New scare tactic: religious strife

I noticed that the fundamentalist lobby is beginning to use the scare tactic of racial and religious conflict to argue their case for keeping the anti-gay law. Such nonsense must be nipped in the bud. Full essay.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Let the man who has never commited a sin cast the first stone." This is what Jesus told the multitude who wanted to stone the prostitute who ran to Jesus when she was being lynched by the mob. The problem today is that we have a lot of moral custodians today. No better work to do than to twist the interpretation of the religious books to their own advantage.

Know why i dont like going to the church anymore inspite of being a christian? Its precisely because of these things. I simply hate what these "first generation christians" have turned the religion into.

a complete farce.

- Philip

Anonymous said...

The US is just as multiracial and multireligious as Singapore. So is New Zealand. Many many countries are. Singaporeans like to think of these as white countries but they are less white than Singapore is Chinese. So I fully agree that using the word "unique" to describe Singapore's multiethnic and multi-religious society is a scare tactic. You could, however, use "unique" to describe Singapore's anti-gay laws among first world countries. Actually, whenever I hear the word "uniquely Singapore" I tend to only think of the bad things, like repression, low press ranking, no freedom of speech/assembly/press. Oh, and the uniquely high minister salaries.

~[z][x]~ said...

Philip,

We might have many ideas in common. Can we talk about this somewhere? This issue has led me to embrace Liberal Christianity recently, and I am so frustrated at this homosexual-Christian dichotomy. A complete farce indeed.

Anonymous said...

Homophobia doesn't have to be "just" a christian thing. Take religion out of the picture, and what you have is a bunch of people who are homophobic, regardless of whether they are christian, or not.

For example, quite a number of heterosexual men (whether they are Christian, buddhist, atheist or whatever) tend to be homophobic when faced directly with overt homosexual acts. It is societal practice, and not religious persecution.

The authorities perceive that the "heartland" is still homophobic. I simplify here - homophobic in the wide sense here includes "don't want to de-criminalise homosexual sex".

The question then is whether the majority is still homophobic in the wide sense. It appears that in the past the majority of society was so.

If the majority are homophobic in the wide sense, as the government appears to perceive, then there could be problems with societal division/conflict, where the majority disapproves of decriminalisation of the minoritys' acts, but the minority is fighting hard for their rights to do those acts.

Saying that the majority must be educated in order to have a inclusive society, is putting the cart before the horse, leapfrogging the issue of potential division/conflict in society.

Anonymous said...

Hey all, I dont mean to be inflammatory but I personally think that certain churches have lost their moral integrity anyway, so even commenting on this issue is inappropiate for them, see the weblink below.

Note that this article comes from WITHIN a church, not from outside. The problem seems to be huge.

http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Igpress/2000-11/essay.html

The Gay Priest Problem
Is there an epidemic of homosexuality in the priesthood?

Recent media reports of an “epidemic” of AIDS among priests causes an examination of the problems in the Church that have led to the current situation.
By Rev. Paul Shaughnessy

AIDS has quietly caused the deaths of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in the United States, although other causes may be listed on some of their death certificates, the Kansas City Star reported today. The newspaper said its examination of death certificates and interviews with experts indicates several hundred priests have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the mid-1980s. The death rate of priests from AIDS is at least four times that of the general population, the newspaper said. Kansas City Bishop Raymond Boland says the AIDS deaths show that priests are human.

... (continue on the link, very long article, I don want to clutter this space)