Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Regardless of race, language or religion
Otto Fong’s heartfelt letter was abruptly pulled from his personal blog barely hours after I read it. It did not cross my mind to archive the letter because I thought that Otto was prepared for the consequences of coming out. Unfortunately, it appears that he wasn’t and the entire entry was pulled down in a matter of hours.
The Online Citizen captured some excerpts of his entry, which you can read about here. I am very curious as to what prompted Otto to take down what I thought was a heartfelt, well-written, and reasonable letter. In fact, what was even more heartwarming were the comments left by his former students. They looked upon him as a teacher who inspired them. The fact that Otto was a homosexual did not erase their opinion that Otto was a good teacher in their hearts.
I really hope that there’s an explanation forthcoming from someone. I do not know if Otto has lost his job but if he has, I am going to have an EXTREMELY unfavourable opinion of MOE. One Alfian Sa’at incident is quite enough. Let’s see what MOE and/or RI has to say about the issue. Then again, it’s probably going to be bureaucratic speech. Never mind, even if it turns out to be a bureaucratic speech, it will be archived for posterity. Google’s caching abilities are quite powerful.
I think we need to amend our pledge to “regardless of race, language, religion or sexuality”. I hate to use the word discrimination but I really get this feeling that there are people out there with every intent to discriminate against homosexuals. Did Jesus not say “love thy neighbour as yourself”? I’m quite sure he didn’t make a distinction between male, female, the leper or the homosexual.
**Update: A reader has kindly provided a copy of Otto’s original entry here. Thank you, James. Much appreciated!
I just realised that The Online Citizen also has a copy of the original entry along with the comments left by his former students.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 10/09/2007 at 10:28 pm, and is filed under Perspective. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 2 years ago
Aaron,
Rather interesting view on Jesus. Unfortunately the Inquisition is unlikely to take to kindly of the view. Rationality has never been one of their strong suits.
about 2 years ago
You make a good point that the Christianists seem to forget: Jesus himself taught tolerance and compassion.
about 2 years ago
Ned and Christao17,
It just goes to show as much as some neo-cons like to wrongly conflate Islamic teachings and terrorism for their own insidious purposes, there are people who conflate Christian beliefs and homosexuality as well. So in the end, religion is not exactly about God or whatever higher being but more for propagating and justifying certain views, even if those views are contrary to the religious teachings.
about 2 years ago
I note your proposal to add “regardless of sexuality” to the Singapore pledge. This is all fine and dandy in theory, but I’m curious to hear if you would be comfortable with such a pledge being recited by pre-primary and primary schools kids everyday. I suppose it is relatively easy to explain what “regardless of race, language or religion” means, but how would you explain “regardless of sexuality” to kids ? (How would you even explain sex to young kids ?)
about 2 years ago
Musings,
Ideally, with a straight face. =)
about 2 years ago
Musings,
I don’t think you need to explain what sex is to kids. What you need to explain is gender. I would explain the norm, i.e. males like females and vice-versa, followed by an explanation of love and why humans from different genders get together and commit to each other. I will also say that while majority of people are like that, there are some people who like people of their own gender and want to commit to each other. I think homosexuality and sex (correct me if I misunderstood you but I think you mean the act of having sex and not gender) are two totally separate matters.
about 2 years ago
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for your reply. I’m not convinced that it is so easy to explain “sexuality” (or “sexual identity”) to kids but since we are discussing a purely hypothetical situation (seeing how our national pledge is not likely to change in the near future), we’ll just leave it as that.
Anyway, my previous thoughts on this topic here – http://www.musings.per.sg/2005/03/86.
As for your comments on homosexuality and sex, I agree that a distinction can be drawn between celibate and non-celibate homosexual relationships. My guess is that fewer people will object to the former than the latter. The Biblical injunction, as I understand, is also against homosexual sex and not, I suppose, a very close relationship between males.
about 2 years ago
Hi Musings,
I agree that it’s not easy to explain sexuality. This is perhaps one of the greatest challenges parents have to face, and it is something I will have to think about seriously in a matter of years. Perhaps when it comes down to the crunch, I will eventually revise my current opinion.
Indeed, I suppose that homosexual sex is the key problem here. In fact, Section 377A deals with intercourse and not homosexuality per se. However, I still think that there is room for greater acceptance of different lifestyle choices.
about 2 years ago
leave him alone