FYI, the purpose of the exhibition was to display portraits of famous Malaysians with the Malaysian flag displaying patriotism and love for their country in conjuction with the upcoming Merdeka Day (Independance Day) celebrations. Hence the only thing about the 2 offending portraits which 'promoted LGBT activities' was the label of 'LGBT activists' on their portraits. Ironically, this effort to remove the portraits from public eye resulted in many more people, including those around the world, being able to see the portraits thank to this news going viral locally as well as internationally.
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| Haven't seen the portraits? Well, you can thank me later |
I'm not an LGBT activist, and while I do know some people in the community, I'm not particularly close to them. Plus I'm as straight as a ruler, so there is no incentive for me to support the LGBT cause per se. However, while I believe everyone has a rights to abide by their religious beliefs, I also believe giving flack to LGBTs is not the way to do so. In my opinion, hate towards LGBTs is actually very much contradictory to God's design, if there there is indeed a creator God as the Muslims and Christians believe. In this post, I'd like to explain that theory, as well as address some of the common arguments against LGBTs. So I appeal to the patience of the religious folks out there to just take some time to read and consider what I have to say, before shooting me down with insults for supporting this 'abominable' group of people.
So here's are the 6 common arguments against LGBTs and my responses to them:
1) Supporting LGBT activists and LGBT rights is the same as promoting LGBT activities, lifestyle and culture
To say this is the same as saying supporting women's rights and activists is the same as encouraging men to become women. Or saying supporting native or 'orang asli' rights is the same as promoting orang asli culture to city folks. Or supporting animal rights is the same as encouraging people to behave like animals. Ridiculous, right? The purpose of activism in all these areas is to fight against the discrimination and suffering of marginalized groups, which could be women, 'orang asli', animals or in the case of our topic, LGBTs. Therefore LGBTs rights do NOT refer to promoting LGBT lifestyle or culture. LGBTs rights refer to the right for them to be able to identify as what they are, and still be treated equally without discrimination. This means being allowed the same opportunities to jobs, opportunities, benefits, recognition of good work, and freedoms allowed by law as anyone else. As it is, LGBTs get subjected to all forms of discrimination, including being ostracized by others, refused jobs, expelled from schools, disowned by families, denied police assistance when they report crimes, sexual harasssment or abuse and even death threats. They suffer all this NOT for promoting their 'activities' but simply for identifying as an LGBT. A religious person can therefore support LGBTs right, i.e. the right for them to get equal treatment and no suffering, without supporting their LGBT 'lifestyle'.
But then, is LGBT 'lifestyle' or 'culture' even correct terms to use? How come people don't say non-LGBTs are living a straight 'lifestyle' or 'culture'? Well, people don't say that because lifestyle and culture is a something we choose to adopt, but being straight is innate. Straight people don't choose to be straight, we just are. Imagine yourself, if you're a straight man, being stuck on a island of gay men trying to coeirce you into gay activities (and vice versa if you're a woman). Other than them forcing you into gay sex, would you do it willingly and happily? Does the very idea of sticking your hoohah into a another man's poop hole utterly disgust you? Well good, that means you are very much straight and no amount of pressure is going to change that. So straightness is not a choice.
So why is it that so many people can't understand that the same holds true for true homosexuals, i.e. that their sexual attraction to people of the same gender is innate? Well, that's because of the next argument
2) LGBT lifestyle/culture is a choice, and these people need to be rehabilited (or killed, if you're a bloody terrorist)
The main question is, can or did they choose to be gay? Or were they born that way, hence it is not a choice? If it was latter, of course, then it would grossly unfair to demand rehabilitiation or punish them for something that they can't control, in the same way that it would be unfair to force left-handed children to use their right hand only (something which some nutjobs unfortunately still do to their poor leftie kids).
To be fair, there is no black or white answer to this argument, because studies support both theories. Homosexuality could arise due to environmental conditions such child abuse, emotional trauma, violence or neglect from parents, which is the theory most anti-LGBT people support as it means these people can be rehabilitated. In fact, some supposed LGBTs had even changed their minds and decided to become straight or revert to their original gender, possibly due to this reason. On the other hand, homosexuality could instead be a result of how genes are expressed during foetal development, something known as epigenesis. In this case, something happened in the womb that cause the baby's genes to be expressed differently from usual, resulting in the baby eventually having gay or transgender inclinations. There is an interesting theory to why this happens, which I will explain later on in point 5. But the point is, in these cases, homosexuality is clearly NOT a choice.
In any case, if you want to attempt to 'rehabilitate' an LGBT person, there is totally nothing wrong with talking to an LGBT person, trying to understand why they feel the way they do, understanding their background, and maybe identify and address the childhood issues they may have had. But that is IF and ONLY IF they are willing to try to be counselled. IF they refuse or don't feel the need to be helped, then it is very likely they are of the latter group where they were essentially born gay and can't change their sexual desires.
The big problem here is the majority of the over-righteous religious folks don't bother with even trying to understand the LGBT person and find out which category they fit into. They just immediately decide the person is a sinful abomination and does not deserv to be treated like a normal human being. Now if you believe LGBTs are a product of environmental conditions, you essentially believe LGBTs underwent some kind of emotional or violent trauma in their life. So if you discriminate, mock, insult, and refuse rights and opportunities to an LGBT person, doesn't that make you an incredbily horrible person for doing all that to a person who you believe to be have been traumatized? And if they are an LGBT because of epigenesis, which means they couldn't possibly choose to be straight, doesn't that also make you an incredible horrible person for mistreating a person due to a trait that they can't possibly change?
Either way, discriminating against an LGBT makes you a really horrible person. And you know what's even more horrible? Forcing or pressuring these people to choose a partner of the opposite gender just to appease your idea of what is 'normal'. Of course true homosexuals can always choose to ignore their desires for same sex partners and choose a partner of the opposite gender solely to appease others. But they surely won't be happy about that, for the very same reason that you 100% straight men would not be happy if the imaginary island of gay men forced you into sticking your hoohah into their poop holes. And not only is it unfair to the gay folks, but it is unfair to the straight partners they choose to marry, as they will both spend their lives in a loveless, passionless marriage. It is unfair to their children, having to grow up in said loveless marriage. If you anti-LGBT folks truly believe a happy family unit is important, why force these people into a loveless, unhappy, and very likely dysfunctional marriage just to appease your idea of what is normal?
Buuuut if you reeaallly insist, then please go ahead and offer up your straight daughters to gay men or straight sons to lesbians. That would make everyone happy! Everyone except your straight children and their gay partners, that is. :)
3) LGBTs are spreading deadly diseases like HIV and AIDS
I have 3 responses to this argument. Ready? Let's go!
i) Let's not kid ourselves. Hate against LGBTs has nothing to do with improving improving health. If that were truly the case then we should also be discriminating against following:
a) People who serve food or drinks with too much sugar. Sugar has been proven to be the cause of weight gain and diabetes which leads to health issues and potentially death
b) People who smoke. Smoking causes lung cancer and second hand smoke can also cause cancer in loved ones including children, leading to disease and death
c) Motorists who speed, run red lights, etc. By doing so, they can cause accidents and lead to death.
But if someone were to say, refuse a job opportunity, benefits or recognition to a person who uses too much sugar, a smoker or a bad road user, simply for those reasons, that would be deemed silly and unreasonable. Also, no one claims that doing giving these people their rights is 'supporting a lifestyle of smoking, eating too sugar or being a lousy road user'. Yet people justify denying such opportunities to LGBTs all the time (i.e. discrimination) with that same ridiculous excuse.
ii) While it is true that gay men (or men who have sex with men, i.e. MSM) have historically shown highest rates of HIV infection as compared to heterosexual couples, exclusive lesbians (or women have sex with women, or WSW) on the other hand, have shown a low to almost negligle risk of STD infections, even compared to heterosexual couples. So technically, if health is your excuse, you should not be hating the 'L' part of LGBTs, coz' lesbians are at much less risk of HIV or AIDS than you straight folks (but nope, I'm still not tempted to try. I'm so straight I will bravely take on the higher risk of a HIV infection!).
iii) High HIV rates among gay men is also not strictly due to the gayness itself, but the tendancy to promiscuous behaviour which increases the risk of spreading STDs. Promiscuity among heterosexuals can ALSO (surprise, surprise) greatly increase the risk of spreading STDs. Hence the key to reducing HIV infections among gay men is pretty much the same as for straight people... use protection and don't be promiscuous! In fact, there are many gays and lesbian loyal to only one partner, and hence why they are fighting for same sex marriage. But even that doesn't go down well with you religious folks, so doesn't that again go to show health reasons just really aren't the issue here? Yep
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| Please support us in our effort to reduce the HIV infection rate among gay men! |
Well, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that the global human population is currently 7.6 billion people and has been growing continuously since the 1300's (or probably around the time people started bothering to record trends like these). Also, homosexuals are minorities for a reason, because there are much less of them than heterosexuals (you know, the ones who can still have babies). While rates of homosexuality differ among countries, on average rates of homosexual encounters among people could be up to around 10%, but exclusively homosexual people are more likely around 2% of the world population. That means over 90% of the world population is still going to be happily going on making babies, so rest assured, LGBTs will not cause human extinction simply because there are too few of them.
The bad news is, there are many other things that could cause the extinction of the human race, such as global warming, which may lead to death of food crops with temperature increase, flooding of land mass due to ice caps melting, leading to less land for food and space for people (not to mention drowning), resulting in high competition for resources and poverty. Some smarty pants scientist dude even estimated that humans could go extinct in 100 YEARS due to global warming. That means your kids or your kids' kids may witness the death of humankind at our own hands. This problem is being exacerbated by OVERPOPULATION. Yes, that baby-making activity you straight people love so much could really end up killing us all! Not to mention various other Armageddon possibilities such as supervirus, supervolcanoe, nuclear war, alien invasion, meteor hitting the earth, etc.
So if you really truly are concerned about the survival of the human race, stop bitching about LGBTs, and start walking to work instead of driving, take less antibiotics, keep Kim Jung Un happy, and yes, have less babies. Well hey, the LGBTs are pretty good at that last one! You should thank them for doing their bit to save the world :)
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| Arrrghhh, the end is niiigghh |
5) There is no benefit to homosexual behaviour
I have 2 points in response to this, one with regards to this interesting idea that sex only has one benefit, and another on some surprising science that suggests homosexuality is actually essential for survival. Wait for it!
i) What people mean when they say this is of course that there is no benefit to homosexual sex, and usually they say this because homosexual sex does not lead to procreation. Which in itself implies that they believe the one and only benefit of heterosexual sex is the ability to make babies. Although as I mentioned above, overpopulation is becoming a real problem that can cause the human race to eventually go extinct, so right there I've shown that this so called benefit is quickly becoming not very beneficial.
But even ignoring the fact that we are dangerously overpopulating the world, is it really true that procreation is the only benefit of sex of any nature? These people imply that humans are nothing more than baby making machines, where their worth is measured only by this ability. So then what about married couples who are infertile and can't have children? What is their worth? Should the fertile partner demand a divorce so he or she can have kids? Should the infertile partner just go hang themself coz their inability to not have kids renders them useless? What about people, including married couples, who choose not to have kids? Does that mean any sex they have has no benefit?
Well duh, of course not to all of the above. The benefit of sex is not just to procreate but is an important act of intimacy between loving partners, essential to foster closer relationships and bonds. Strong social interactions, including love, are important to all humans. A couple can of course enjoy a loving and healthy sexual relationship without the need to have children, which applies to both heterosexual and homosexual people.
ii) And here's the shocking bit. Science suggests that homosexuality is important to survival! Which is not to say, humans will die out without gays, but it seems that nature has a mechanism to create gay people as a way to build stronger connections within families.
Dr. James O' Keefe who presented this idea in a Ted Talk on homosexuality, compared it to ants, where the queen ant has the ability to switch the expression of genes in her offspring to produce either soldier ants, when their territory needs to be defended, or worker ants, when the colony is hungry and they need food. In humans, studies showed that the more older brothers a male has, the more likely he is to be gay. Why? Well, typical men are less predisposed to developing close social bonds with family, but gay men usually have a higher emotional quotient (EQ) and hence have higher inclination to prioritizing close social bonds. So this trend of a gay man being born after several straight brothers may be nature's way of ensuring while there are enough manly man out there to their manly man jobs and take care of the physical needs of the family, but there are also 'softer' men with higher emotional intelligence to help keep the family's social bonds strong. Of course, some gay men are born first in the family, so why did they become gay? Well, this is also explained by Dr. O'Keefe that gay men who were born first was due to prenatal stress in the mother. Basically, if mummy is having a tough emotional time while carrying her first baby boy, this also can cause the activation of the genes that create gay male babies. Also nature's way of creating someone who can help mum emotionally through that tough time.
For the religious folks, don't be shocked. All this just goes to show the amazing nature of the creator God that you claim to believe in, that he designed such mechanisms for our benefit. But if that wasn't enough to convince you that God intentionally designed homosexuality, then the next point is going to be a killer!
6) LGBT lifestyle is unnatural and does not occur in nature
Unfortunately, if you really want to be an expert about animal behaviour, religious classes aren't the best place to learn. Just a quick Google search on 'homosexual behaviour in animals' shows various example of homosexual behaviour in nature, including a list of animals displaying homosexual behviour. That comprises of at least 500 different species ranging from mammals, birds, insect, fish and even insects. A few examples of observed behaviour, plus the expected conservative reaction, include:
- Pair bonding among ducks, where ducks of the same gender sometimes form lifelong partnerships, or a female will raise young with two male ducks (ok, that's not too bad)
- Female bonobos (a type of chimpanzee) who regularly rub against each other's genitilia for no clear reason other than sexual pleasure (well, that's worse but at least not penetrative sex...)
- Male rams engaging in very anal sex with other male rams (THAT'S IT, kill me now!)
For your viewing pleasure, here's a fascinating documentary on gay animals. My personal favorite is at 33:30 where two male octupuses of DIFFERENT species were caught mating on camera! That's right, folks, there are fags right at the bottom of the deep blue sea. :)
Oh wait, nature gets even MORE shocking! In addition to homosexual behaviour, some species also demonstrate the ability to change gender! This most commonly occurs among fishs, gastropods, and plants. This condition occurs usually due to environmental conditions and is known as sequential hermaphroditism. It's ok, you conservative folks, I know big scientific words are tough, so let's just call them sex-changing animals (or you could call them tranimals for short. Get it? Tranny + animals? Ok, nevermind). Here's a simpler list of 10 sex-changing animals.
So remember what I said at the beginning about hate against LGBTs being contradictory to creator God's design? Well consider this. Scientists have estimated that the world has anywhere between 8.7 billion to 1 trillion different species. With so many different lifeforms and so many different animals behaviours including homosexual behaviour, it should be clear to anyone who learns the intricacies of nature that God the creator loves diversity. So it makes sense that we should also love and appreciate diversity, including LGBTs, and any other way would be an insult to the amazingly diverse world God has created.
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| And this is why you should watch more National Geographic |
Welllll, I don't care about your previous 6 incredibly valid points. LGBTs are forbidden in Islam/Christianity and that's that!
Alright, calm down and breath, people, before you hyperventilate at the suggestion that maaaaybe what you've been taught all your life is wrong (maaaaybe it is, but I'm not saying that). I'm not telling you people to give up on religion. But maaaaybe it would be good to go back to the source and analyze what the holy books really say about LGBTs.
Now I'm not going to even try and deny what your holy books say about male homosexuality being a sin and unacceptable in these religions. I've done my research and know that both holy books say as such. Note, however, that I only mentioned male homosexuality. It seems that both holy books don't really mentioned anything about female homosexuality or the desire or act of change genders as being a sin. In fact, according to this article, transgenders are accepted as clergy members in some Christian denominations and in this article, there is apparently Biblical support for transgender identify. While in the Quran, there seems to be no clear prohibition on sex change. Funnily enough, Iran is the only country that has the death penalty for homosexuality BUT prescribes sex change operations as a treatment for it. So one has to wonder why the 'L', female 'B' and 'T' part of LGBTs are all considered unacceptable by religious folks as there does not seem to be any clear basis for it in the religious books. But I admit, I'm not the expert, so perhaps someone can enlighten me on which parts of the Bible or Quran forbid female homosexuality or gender changes. I'm honestly interested to know. As in specific verses and all. Anyone? Hello?
Both the Quran and the Bible also refer to Sodom and Gomorrah as the primary story of why male homosexuality is a sin. We all know the story, God wanted to destroy these two cities because they were so deeply in sin, namely homosexual behaviour, that God decided they were not worth keeping around. But funnily enough in the Bible, outside of the book of Genesis, when the sins of Sodom are mentioned, homosexuality isn't one of them!
Ezekiel 16: 49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen
Mmm, if gayness was the greatest sin, why isn't it listed as one of the reasons why Sodom got obliterated by God? Apparently things that non-gay people do, such as being arrogant, greed (being overfed), indifference (unconcerned), disregard for the poor, and pride (haughtiness) were all big enough sins to wipe out an entire city! However, arrogant, greedy, and indifferent people don't get discriminated against half as much LGBTs.
So it goes to show that there are many other sins that were apparently very abhorrent to God. Yet we straight people do not systemically discriminate against anyone displaying such characteristics, perhaps because most of us have also been guilty of arrogance, greed or indifference towards the needy at some point or the other. People just for some reason enjoy segregating and hating those who are different from us, and hence why LGBTs always get the brunt of discrimination. But again, as nature shows, God loves diversity... so why can't we?
Conclusion (finally!)
I truly believe that the intent of any religion is to teach people to be good, kind, and to better ourselves. It is sad to see that it is constantly misused instead as an excuse to judge, curse and condemn others different from us, even when they are not out to hurt anyone. All in all, you don't need to openly support the LGBT community. They are certainly not asking the public for special treatment or to support homosexuality, their 'lifestyle' or 'culture' or whatever you want to call it. They just want to live their lives in peace, freely choose who they want to love, and maybe even just be able to say "I'm a lesbian/ gay/ bisexual/ transgender" without fearing rejection or even for their lives.
We humans are all here on this wonderful diverse planet God created for such a short time, how about less hate to the other people he created, and more focusing more on making it a better and safer place for everyone?
Have a nice day! :)
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