Fridae

In February this year, a blogger put up an online survey, asking for a Yes or No answer to the statement "I favour equal rights for homosexuals in Singapore, including decriminalisation, marriage, public housing and unbiased inclusion in sex education." ("unsure/undecided" and "don't care" were other answer options).

Out of 137 responses received when I last checked, 109 (79.6%) agreed with the statement while 12 persons (8.8%) disagreed.

Most of the respondents were relatively young. 56 (40.9%) were between 16 and 20 years of age, while another 65 (47.4%) were 21-30 years old.

There were more females than males in the survey. 99 (72.3%) of the answers came from females.

64 persons (47.1%) identified as heterosexual, 27 (19.9%) as bisexual, 25 (18.4%) as homosexual, 4 (2.9%) as asexual, while 16 persons (11.8%) said they were unsure of their sexual orientation.

However, we can't read too much into those results because of sampling uncertainties. One of the visitors to her blog commented likewise, but he (I think it's a "he") phrased his comments in a rather unusual way, and in there lies a noteworthy point. He took issue with the survey results because the respondents included people who identified as homosexual.

He wrote, "Why are homosexuals polled? Are there any homosexuals who do not 'favour equal rights' etc etc for homosexuals?"

"Shouldn't the poll be directed towards non-homosexuals?"

The subtext within that comment was that society's place for gay people is for heterosexuals to determine. The gay "vote" cannot be counted. Gays and lesbians should not have any say on matters related to themselves.

From this point, it's a short hop to another common, if rarely enunciated, idea: that fair treatment of sexual minorities is not a question of right, but of privilege, generously extended to minorities by the heterosexual majority - when the heterosexual majority is ready.

I'd be preaching to the converted if I told you this was nonsense.

Sometimes LGBTs say the same thing
But what we don't realise is that our own talk about the need for acceptance bowls down the same alley. When we say to the general public that "we" - and it's funny how the first person plural can mean the entire society, but is also left to be understood as merely the heterosexual part of society - should strive towards tolerance and acceptance, we clearly put the initiative into their hands. Admission of gays and lesbians to full equality is left to their comfort level, at their pace. If they take a hundred years to "accept," does that mean we wait a hundred years?

Acceptance is nice to have, but it should hardly be the necessary condition before we get our civil rights. Our rights are due to us because we are citizens of the countries in which we live, and our governments, excepting ruthless rogues in a few Asian countries, are pledged to uphold justice and equality. It is important to be clear about this and not confuse the issue with calls for acceptance.

This is not to deny that being accepted is emotionally satisfying. Humans are social animals, and it is a well-known fact that we need to be part of the social community in which we live. But the community is not the same as the country, and what's truly important to each of us is even smaller than that. It is acceptance by family and close friends that matters, not what the strangers on the bus think.

Fortunately, Asian cultures tend to place a high value on family ties. On the one hand, this can be suffocating, in that parents assume certain powers to interfere in, and even direct, family members' lives. On the other hand, they can be very protective. "Right or wrong, she's still my daughter. Don't you mess with her."

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A necessary consequence of placing a high value on family ties, since families throughout history have always been made up of diverse individuals, occasionally outlandish ones, has been the cultural habit of the ambiguous silence, the looking away, the "just let me pretend I don't know about it."

Unspoken tolerance isn't as good for our psychosocial health as acknowledgement and acceptance, but humans are relatively hardy, and for many, this is good enough. Most manage to negotiate their way through life reasonably well within the unspoken.

State and society isn't just a bigger family
However, there is a danger that many Asian societies see the state and society as a scaled-up version of the extended family, where the question isn't one of rights, but of acceptance and "fitting-in."

Some self-serving governments like to encourage this kind of thinking, as when they claim that the language of rights is not part of Asian culture.

At the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, Wong Kan Seng, now Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister, pronounced, "homosexual rights are a Western issue, and are not relevant at this conference". [Baden Offord: Homosexual Rights as Human Rights, 2002]

At other times, many people, even governments, may believe that since ambiguous silence is sufficient at the social level, it too is good enough for running a country, as in "don't ask, don't tell."

But the kind of modus vivendi that works in families and social circles can't be scaled up easily. In the small circle, people know and have a stake in the gay or lesbian individual. Chances are, you can't egregiously ill-treat the gay family member without another family member getting quite upset.

At the level of society, people don't have a personal stake in strangers. Furthermore, the cover of anonymity permits all sorts of abuses to fester. These two factors together means that even when people witness abuse, the "it's none of my business" attitude is all too easy to adopt.

This is as true whether it's a case of employers not paying wages to migrant labourers, dumping trash on open ground, or cruelty to animals, as when it's a case of fathers forcing their daughters into arranged marriages to hide the "shame" of lesbianism in the family.

And this is why, unlike families and social groupings, societies have to operate by a set of explicit rules, making it the State's business when nobody wants to make it his business. Moreover, history has generally shown that societies are healthier when the rules are well written and implemented fairly, and all people treated with respect. Civil rights are part and parcel of that collective wisdom.

So, Asian society or not, we shouldn't be embarrassed to speak the language of rights. It is our due as citizens, as well as our contribution to the strengthening of state and society. Needless to say, we should not tolerate anyone suggesting that civil rights for gays and lesbians should wait until the heterosexuals are ready.

Alex Au has been a gay activist for over 10 years and is the co-founder of People Like Us. Readers who have experience with applying for Dependent's Passes for their same-sex spouse to live together in Singapore could write to him so that that gay activists in Singapore can have some facts to go on. He can be contacted at yawning@geocities.com.