How do you stop LGBTs from becoming MPs?

 

Azwanddin backs up his claim of the LGBT threat by saying he has 17 reports of families that were broken up because the husbands got involved with gays. But that doesn’t prove anything. Those husbands might have been closet gays to begin with. They might have been forced into marriage to put up a front – until they discovered that they were not truly realizing the selves they were born as.  

by Kee Thuan Chye, Malaysian Digest    

Imagine this scenario in the not-too-distant future:

“Yang Berhormat, the general election is coming up. We are finalizing our list of candidates. I need to ask you if you are an LGBT person.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“You haven’t heard? There’s a new legislation that forbids LGBT people from becoming MPs. Also senators.”

“LGBT means what? Lettuce, gherkin, bacon, tomato? Sounds like a sandwich.”

“No, Yang Berhormat. LGBT is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender.”

“What you talking laa? What’s that got to do with me?”

“Er … Yang Berhormat, are you gay?”

“Ei! If I’m gay, you think I’ll tell you and lose my chance of getting reelected ah? Bodoh!”

A situation like this is not going to happen, I hope. It’s too laughable. 

And yet we had someone like Bayan Baru MP Zahrain Mohamad Hashim trying to table a motion in Parliament last week to bar people who are LGBT from becoming MPs and senators.

Good thing the Speaker of the House, Pandikar Amin Mulia, rejected the motion, because it was “insignificant”.

But now Jaringan Melayu Malaysia (JMM) and several other NGOs are planning to stage a public rally on April 21 to demand Pandikar Amin’s resignation. Its chairperson, Azwanddin Hamzah, says, “We consider the LGBT phenomenon a serious threat to the country.” He insists that if it was not eradicated, the country would face a “catastrophe”.

He also lashes out at the “free-sex LGBT lifestyle”, and warns that groups are trying to spread it. 

I think before we go any further, we should stop and mull over what he says. 

The first question we need to ask is: Are LGBTs truly a serious threat? In fact, are they even a threat at all? Are they so dangerous that they could lead this country to catastrophe?

Secondly, do LGBTs practice free sex and promote it to others? 

I have a good number of gay friends – and my answers to these questions are “no”. Sure, there are some LGBTs who practice free sex, but then there are also “straight” people who do that too.

Some of my gay friends are among the most creative people I know. Plus they have good minds and they show positive leadership qualities. If they should stand for elections, I’d vote for them. They would certainly contribute better to the debates in Parliament than bigoted dolts who spread falsehood about others.

Azwanddin backs up his claim of the LGBT threat by saying he has 17 reports of families that were broken up because the husbands got involved with gays. But that doesn’t prove anything. Those husbands might have been closet gays to begin with. They might have been forced into marriage to put up a front – until they discovered that they were not truly realizing the selves they were born as. 

Besides, cases of husbands being lured away by the opposite gender, i.e. women, are most likely many times more. So it’s not fair to blame LGBT for the few broken marriages.

In fact, studies have found that most individuals are not absolutely heterosexual or absolutely homosexual. The famous Kinsey Reports on human sexual behavior, although half a century old, may still be valid to a certain extent in positing that there are seven categories of sexual persuasion.

Apart from “exclusively heterosexual” and “exclusively homosexual”, other categories include “predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual” and “predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual”. So it’s all a matter of degree.

As the report explains, “The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories.”

Given this, even ardent homophobes may not be exclusively heterosexual! And if such is the way of nature, then we should respect the fact that although we are sexually inclined differently, we are nonetheless all human beings – and, therefore, deserving of being accepted instead of being persecuted.

As for free sex, this is not a practice particular to any group – and certainly not the LGBT community. You cannot categorize people into certain groups and say they practice free sex. Knowing how we like to vilify the Jews, goodness knows the next thing we might say is that Jews practice free sex! And that, as we know, would be schmegegge.

On the surface, what this episode involving Zahrain and JMM shows is that they are afflicted with a fear of the Other that stems from lack of knowledge. But I suspect there is more to it than that – with the general election expected soon, their real agenda could be a sinister one targeting certain political individuals. 

It is also surely no coincidence that JMM has chosen April 21 as its day of protest and Dataran Merdeka as its venue. This is exactly one week before the Bersih 3.0 rally, scheduled to be held on April 28 at the very same place. Their plan might be to provoke the police to stop their rally so that the latter would do the same to the Bersih one.

Besides, it is unlikely that Zahrain’s proposed motion in Parliament was something even he would think is viable. How would legislation forbidding LGBT people from becoming House representatives be applied in practice?

How, for instance, does one verify that a person is LGBT in order to disqualify him or her? Conduct medical tests that have yet to be invented? Compel sexual partners to testify against them? Employ the Special Branch to follow their movements and dig up their secrets? 

What will we be ushering in? Something like the Salem witch-hunt or McCarthyism?

Instead of harping on the negative, why don’t we look at countries that have LGBT people as national leaders? In Australia, Malaysian-born Penny Wong, who’s lesbian, is Minister for Climate Change and Water. Has it brought doom to Australia?

The Prime Minister of Iceland, Johanna Siguroardottir, is also openly gay, but the last we’ve heard, Iceland has not faced a catastrophe.

There are many more examples that show that LGBTs are as human as other so-called straight people, and that they are as capable as leaders. If we recognize their talents instead of persecute them for their sexual leanings, we could have a better, more progressive Malaysia.

Heck, Malaysia may have even had LGBT government ministers – and many of us don’t know about it! After all, if they don’t declare it, how are we to tell?