By George Hwang, 28th February 2010

The recent police reports filed by 85 people against Rony Tan for his anti-gay speech right after he was rapped by the Internal Security Department bemoans the sad state of affairs in our laws on this subject. In a more democratic society, where the law does not discriminate against LGBTQs, this would not happen. This is because criticisms and discourse would have been generated in the press once his anti-gay speech is known. This is likely to be when Kenneth Tan’s article, “Singapore Pastor Castigated for Offensive Remarks Against Buddhism Should Apologise to Gays and Lesbian Too”, has been published on www.fridae.com and not when the story of the 85 complaints was broken by same site. He would have already been censured publicly and no legal recourse against him will be considered necessary.

In the short run, the AG will have to inform Singapore on how he is going to handle the speech which has incensed a part of our nation. As it has obviously created ill will and hostility, it could possibly be seditious. At the very least, the AG will need to inform the 85 complainants, which can now be more, his decision on what to do. This is a substantial figure. One that the police has not refuted.

As the incident show, Singaporeans no longer take what they consider disinformation or misinformation sitting down. In the long-run, we need to decide whether to have greater state intervention against such inappropriate remarks or to change its laws regarding the subject of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Freedom of speech guards the common space which all Singaporeans share. As society morphs, our rules on fairplay should enable this to take place in an orderly manner. Therefore, changes made should level the playing field. Let the likes of Rony Tan continue what many consider as ill-informed rhetorics. However, balance them with accurate information and healthy opinions. In a democratic society, we need to create a marketplace of ideas and allow them to be exchanged.

Discriminatory Legal Scenario

Whilst the good Pastor can be prosecuted under the Penal Code for his speech against the Buddhists and Taoists under s298A, Penal Code, the same cannot apply to his speech against people of different sexual persuasion or gender identity. Strangely, this section, made law in October 2007, could have accommodated the LGBTQ community had it remain the same as the draft in the Consultative Document published by the Ministry of Home Affairs for public feedback in November 2006. The Consultation Paper version reads:

Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony
298A.

Whoever —
(a) by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, knowingly promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion or race, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious or racial groups or communities; or

(b) commits any act which he knows is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious or racial groups or communities and which disturbs or is likely to disturb the public tranquility,

shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 years, or with fine, or with both.

At the bill’s first reading, the words “or communities” went missing.

Section 298A was introduced to replace the use of the Sedition Act for situations such as Rony Tan’s. This Act was exhumed to prosecute some bloggers for making inappropriate comments against the Muslims. However, the Sedition Act has never been used where the bane of the remarks is a person with different sexual orientation. Though the phrase promoting “feelings of ill-will and hostility between different … classes of the population of Singapore” is broad enough, it is not defined in the Act or by cases. We are, therefore, in uncharted waters.

On the other hand, not only do we have s377A, Penal Code, the section retained in October 2007, which criminalises sex between men, Singapore’s censorship laws gag most healthy depictions of gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transsexuals. A look at the Internet Code of Practice and the Free-to-Air Television Programme Code testifies to this lopsided situation.

Unhealthy Soundbites

Our discriminatory laws have led to the likes of Rony Tan passing inappropriate remarks and misinforming the public. He has likened gays to monkeys and donkeys. His is the most recent in a string of such comments. The most infamous is, of course, Thio Li-Ann’s speech in Parliament when debating the repeal of s377A.

In the same sermon, Rony also obfuscated homosexuality with paedophilia. This is misinformation. Another example of misinformation I have witnessed was made by another pastor, Derek Hong.

When a bill on equal employment opportunity in USA was being tabled in 2007, Derek took this opportunity to scare his congregation. In that year, Bill No. H.R. 2015, “Employment Non-Discrimination”, which clearly excluded religious organisations from its ambit was mooted in the US legislature. However, Derek decided to paint the bill as a tool to be used by gay activists, who according to him were used by Satan and were going to bankrupt churches and other Christian organisations. In his own words:

“The gay activists lobby is actually being used by Satan to undermine the gospel and the word of God …There’s a bill now … and this is carrying it to its Nth degree … before the American Congress … And they twin this bill that relates to equality in employment so nobody is to be prejudiced whatever their religious background, whatever their sexual orientation … and if this bill gets through, this is what the gay activists are going to do. They are going to target every church, every Christian church … every gospel preaching ministry with this strategy. They are going to go in, openly declare themselves as gay …, with their lifestyle … and they are going to apply for positions … child care, child minders, youth pastors, and if they are turned down … on account of their declared sexual lifestyle, they are going to sue this organisations. And you know what the judicial system can be like in America. Their goal is to bankrupt churches and Christian organisations … so what we are facing, brothers and sisters, is an issue that all of us should be aware of …”

You can listen to it on http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2007/son-788a.mp3

On the other hand, the strict censorship laws against the “promotion of homosexual lifestyle” have led to healthy information being censored.

We are all fully aware of the cut on Sean Penn’s acceptance speech for his performance in “MILK” at the Oscar last year. What is more interesting is the lesser known cut on director Cynthia Wade’s acceptance speech the year before.

The director won the best director for documentary award for her film, “Freeheld”, about a dying policewoman, Lieutenant Laurel Hester’s fight for equal rights so that her partner and care giver, Stacie Andree can afford to keep their house after her death. It chronicled the alliance between “macho cops” and gay activists who fought alongside Lieutenant Hester. It showed us what humanity is.

There is also the Ellen DeGeneres Show where a 3 minute segment met the scissors on Channel 5. Ellen condemned homophobia and spoke about the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old gay student Lawrence King in school. Her remarks were a response to American (Oklahoma) state legislator Sally Kern’s anti-gay remarks. In a speech addressing her fellow Republican colleagues, she claimed that ”the homosexual agenda” posed a bigger threat to the United States than terrorism.

These cuts were self-censorships by MediaCorp. The scissors fell on Ellen’s remarks probably because it came in the same week where the station was fined $15,000 for airing an interior designing programme from Canada with an episode featuring the nursery of a same sex couple. This is a country which legalised gay marriage and it merely reflects its society.

Ellen’s remark was in response to a politician’s speech. This is current affairs. As for Cynthia Wade, take a look at the trailer for her documentary and decide for yourself if it in anyway glorifies or promote homosexuality. This trailer can be viewed on www.fridae.com’s article on this subject:

http://fridae.com/newsfeatures/2008/02/26/2015.docu-about-dying-lesbians-equality-fight-wins-oscar-directors-acceptance-speech-snipped

The censorship laws have not only created self-censorship, which in itself is unhealthy, it has conditioned our journalists and media to automatically ignore important information regarding equal rights.

Towards a more Democratic and Healthier Society

Remarks such as Rony’s do not contribute to healthy perspectives on the LGBTs, much less a teenager awakening to his sexuality, whatever it may be. They reinforce stereotypical images of homosexuals as paedophiles, deviants and psychopaths. The 85 consider it as disinformation. More importantly, the episode shows that if left unchecked, these remarks could polarize society. It has stirred up ill-will or hostility. Such complaints take up manhours.

The question is: do we check his irresponsible conduct by hauling him in each time he makes them or do we take a step back and look objectively at our laws, abolish those which are discriminatory, those which create an unhealthy and ill-informed population? The other question we need to ask is: whether we want to be a liberal society or a democratic one?

A liberal society is one where we have lots of liberal minded people or a substantive amount of liberal minded people. I do not know if Singapore is one, given the current state of our censorship laws. However, we do have liberal minded people, yours truly included. And they will increase, given the nature of Singapore.

A democratic society is one where freedom of expression is treasured, where the laws on censorship and media promote, facilitate or allow different opinions, creating a marketplace of ideas, where creative ideas and solutions flourish. To progress as a nation, we need a plurality of voices.

We are seeing more and more LGBTQ people taking their place in society. The Nepalese Parliament has Sunil Pant, the Indonesian Human Rights Commission has Yulianus Rettoblaut (also known as “Mami Yuli”), Australia has retired J. Michael Kirby in its Supreme Court and South Africa has J. Edwin Cameron in its Constitutional Court. Singapore will be no exception. As her sons and daughters of different sexual orientation and gender identity take their rightful place society, we need make room for them.

Yet, we need to reserve some space for the ultra-religious conservatives, the extreme fundamentalists.

The government can decide that Singapore is to be a liberal minded society tomorrow and shut all the Rony Tans up. This is not the solution. There will always be Rony Tans. In the long run, we cannot keep hauling Rony Tans up for intolerant remarks against people who prefer oranges and not apples.

How then do we accommodate different opinions, regardless of correctness, and accommodate change? We create a level-playing field in the media and “public arena or spaces”, where there will be public discourse, where healthy images of LGBTQs are seen and heard. To do so, we need to counter the disinformation and misinformation with accurate and up-to-date ones. Leave the insults and inappropriate remarks alone, unless they incite or cause physical harm to the victims of the remarks. Once given the correct tools, accurate information and well informed opinions, Singaporeans will be able to judge for themselves independently. They will know that what these remarks are mere reflections of the speakers and not the victims, the LGBTs.

Therefore, we need to lift the censorship on “homosexual lifestyle”. It is gagging important and healthy information from coming through. It results in the likes of Rony Tan creating unhealthy images of your neighbours, fostering intolerance and disrespect in our pluralistic society. Almost every straight person in Singapore knows an LGBTQ person. We need to abolish s377A. Not only is it unconstitutional in our secular society, it does not conform to international human rights standards on non-discrimination. For a society based on the rule of law, it makes a mockery of it. It allows Rony Tans to justify themselves. It confuses Singaporeans.

If we are to progress as a democracy, where we live as one united people regardless of race, language, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, we need to be able to agree to disagree. We fight free speech with free speech. The current one-sided law does not facilitate this.

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George Hwang is a Roman Catholic lawyer whose practice includes Entertainment & Media Law. He is a member of the South East Asia Media Legal Defense Network and a Steering Committee member of the International Media Lawyers Association.

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4. “Singapore upholds free speech” – MM Lee’s press secretary
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