Otto Fong - coming out

A NMP in a Singapore first, is going to present a Parliamentary Petition to repeal Section 377A. Section 377A states that it is a crime for men to have sex with each other, whether in public or in private. This follows the coming out of Otto Fong, a teacher in a famous boy's school. Then there is this online campaign to get signatories for an open letter to the PM to repeal Section 377A.

Mr Fong's came clean in his blog, which incidentally has now been deleted ostensibly by order of either the school or the good people from MOE in return for keeping his job. Apparently, he came out because he was much encouraged by MM Lee who in April this year called homosexuality a “genetic variation”, questioning the validity of criminalising gay sex. The blog may have been deleted but his post can still be found all over the net. Try this or this.

While I admired his courage and guts in coming out, I strongly felt that what he has done in coming out is totally wrong.. and I am not talking about his losing his job, friends and relatives.

His sexual preference is his own. However, as a teacher charge with leading young impressionable teens with raging hormones, what type of message will he be sending across to these boys? Teachers like religious leaders set the example and lead the way for their students/followers. In a boys school where there is no female students, I can't imagine the confused thoughts running through students' head each time they form a friendship with another student? Am I gay? Am I in love with him? etc etc Will they mistake genuine affection for friends as 'love'? Can good old fashion male bonding be mistaken for 'love'? Yes definitely. Will they accept that homosexuality is an accepted social behaviour? Yes why not? - if dear Sir is, it can't be wrong, right?

One of the biggest argument put forward by gays are that they love each other. Right and there is nothing wrong in loving another person, be it man or woman. Human beings have been created with a big capacity for love, in fact multiple love - be it to their children, partners, friends and pets. However, just because you love your children, parents, friends and pets does not mean that you make love to them.... and that is precisely the problem with men in love. Man and woman are created by God or for the non-believer; nature to be different and yet to be a perfect match (at least where certain parts of the body is concerned) - don't need to spell out right?. By virtue of just looking at the body parts alone, one can safely conclude that sex between men is wrong since the body parts simply don't fit! Imagine trying to fit the male end of a plug into another plug? You get the drift? - No? The male end of the plug is designed to fit into the female end of a power socket or another plug!

Moving on to another common argument - they are born that way. I beg to disagree. Yes, there are people who are born 'trans gender' i.e. somehow the genes are all mixed up and they are either a man in a woman's body or vice versa. Such person ultimately will need a sex change and that is perfectly fine. However, for the gays and lesbian, there is no such inclinations. They are perfectly happy with their body and in fact for the guys, I think they pay a lot of attention to their bodies to buff it up for their mates. So they are not born that way. Somewhere along the road of life, they are led either consciously or unconsciously to the conclusion that they 'love' somebody of the same sex and there is love, there must be sex and so the 'sex' thingy. I guess this is where I feel the influence of people like Otto comes in play and this is why I don't think he should have come out like that though as I understand it, it was already an open secret in the school.

Having said that, I also don't agree with keeping Section 377A because it makes no sense to have a toothless law. What adults do in their personal lives should not concern the state and criminalizing it would simply make the country look like idiots to the rest of the world.

So what am I trying to get across here? Everybody is entitled to live their own lives they way they want to but not if in the process they hurt or influence someone to do something that could be illegal or morally unacceptable.

So I wish teacher Fong all the best and hope he is happy and that he will do the right thing to ensure his students know what is right and wrong. Hmm.. and I wonder - is dear teach still teaching there?