Sunday, April 26, 2009
What should I do when I hear homophobic comments?
Do I sit by and do nothing? Or should I rebuke them?
Comments like "Fucking gay faggots" arise time to time at work by members of a certain race. I so badly wanted to scream at them, call out their bigotry and ignorance, yet I was afraid. Not afraid of them, but afraid of being ostracized or accused of shoving my "gay lifestyle", whatever that means, down their throats. So I cowardly backed off, and just said "Don't say that. And anyway faggot means gay. So you are really say fucking gay gay."
Recently a wave of homophobia has swept across Singapore. AWARE, a secular NGO that promotes women's rights and equality has been taken over by a group of Christian fundamentalists, who claimed that AWARE was promoting 'lesbianism' and promoting 'that lifestyle choice'.
As I read each word of every line on the Straits Times, my heart was boiling and I felt incensed. I felt misunderstood. I felt worried. People are gonna assume that all lesbians are man-hating, abused as a child, fatherless, given-up-on-all-men women, and that we are out to 'recruit' other straight women.
There is no truth in this statement by the instigator of this takeover, a mom of a certain homophobic NMP whose last name starts with a T and ends with and O. She cannot be named as she is known for her lawsuits.
I definitely do not belong to any of those descriptions. One of my best friends is a guy, I was never abused, definitely not fatherless, and never had a omg-he-broke-up-with-me-all-men-are-bastards moment. And I can safely say this on behalf of many of my gay friends.
Yet Christian Fundies keep twisting the facts just to keep the majority of Sporeans who are otherwise nonchalent about the issue join their side. When you get parents worried about their kids, you have won the battle.
But the arguement is whether AWARE was too gay-friendly. Well, no they weren't. In fact, they didn't wanna be associated with the gay community as they didn't wanna be seen as a gay organization. That said, they say nothing wrong with being gay and decided that gay women are women afterall and needed equal attention.
Somehow the conservative fundies viewed it as a form of promotion of gay rights.
What can I do about it? I really wanna stand up against it, but I don't know how. I feel useless knowing that we are allowing this to happen. And the more I think about it, the more wary I am of my friends who are Christians, especially those who consider themselves to be more than just church-goers. Will they stab me in the back too? Do they have the same views as these christian fundies? Do they only see me as a sinner in need of help?
I'm staying clear. Organized Religion is now too fundamental for me. You are either with me or against me, and I cannot hang out with people who do not agree with me.