Section 377a is the gift that keeps on giving, even if you just want a break from it.
Last weekend, the Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore posted comments on the possible repealing of Section 377a and marriage.
Here’s what was posted.
Predictably, the comment set off a firestorm, with supporters and detractors coming out from everywhere to get air out their opinions.
As expected, the initial salvo from the detractors attacked the Catholic Church itself.
They’re of the view that the Catholic Church should just mind its business and settle the cases of molestations and pedophilia infesting its ranks before they try to meddle in other concerns.
For the uninitiated, the Catholic Church has long suffered from those issues.
There’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to showcasing the fact.
The current Pope, Pope Francis, has apologized many times for the conduct of the clergy (and others in the church), with the most recent one coming just last week in Canada.
While it’s true that the Catholic Church has a problem, in this case they might have been an accidental scapegoat. After all, according to the Church statement, they were asked by the media for comments.
There might have been a case to be made for remaining silent, but the fact of the matter is that the statement was requested, not stated just because the Catholic Church wanted to add more fuel to the fire.
It goes without saying then, that the Catholic Church’s supporters take the statement as an affirmation that they’re right all along.
Of course, among those supporters are bigots who cloak themselves in anonymity. Some use religion to mask their bigotry. Make no mistake though, they’re bigots.
They just want the LGBTQ+ community to suffer just because they’re different.
I personally however, wonder if these people are not jumping the gun?
As I mentioned in a previous post, Section 377a doesn’t have anything to do with gay marriages. In fact, these people who are objecting to that seem to conveniently forget the fact that lesbians have been given free reign to do the same thing that gay males are branded criminals for.
That alone makes me wonder if there’s a certain amount of herd mentality going on, with most of the objectors having no real idea what they’re against other than the LGBTQ+ community.
After all, apart from the heated debate regarding the Archdiocese’s statements, the biggest issue seems to be whether marriage should be between a man and woman or two individuals, no matter the sexual orientation.
‘Experts’ (and by that I mean Netizens) have quoted scripture, taken examples from the Bible and more to prove their point that marriage shouldn’t be anything other than the union of a man and a woman who are in love.
For their part, those who are for LGBTQ+ marriages push back that if love, a male and a female is all there is to marriage, why isn’t marriage legal between an adult and a consenting minor who are in love?
Proponents of LGBTQ+ marriages mostly base their arguments on semantics, digging holes in the rationalizations of those who are against.
Moderates on the issue however, think it’s nobody else’s business about who gets married.
I guess in that sense, they’re on the LGBTQ+ side.
I do agree with the sentiment however.
Marriage aside, there are quite a few Netizens who point out that marriage also will mostly involve kids.
How would that work assuming that adoption is readily available for same sex couples?
Would having both parents of the same sex be a detriment to the child growing up? It might, especially in conservative Singapore but I’ve not seen anything conclusive either way.
Whoever is right or wrong, the general sentiment from both sides is that the government’s been slow to act thus far.
Perhaps rightly, many view that the issue has been on the burner for awhile and it was ignored.
Now that it’s blown up, in no small part due to the bigots organizing the ‘Protect Singapore’ townhall, the government’s scrambling to take a stance.
Whatever the case, it certainly looks like the powers that be need to make a stand to make their position known. Hemming and hawing only works for so long.