A friend from my Taoism-Singapore heritage group invited a number of active members to his gay wedding! His American partner and him got married in San Francisco recently and now he invites his friends in Singapore for a reception here. The American is a distinguished professor at NUS - a Head of Department and academic renowned worldwide in his field - while the Singaporean a department head in a MNC. They have been together many years - longer than many married heterosexual couples. The attendees are clearly overwhelmingly heterosexual and a few of our heritage members - yup, they are Singaporeans - even brought their spouses and children (!!!).
These members - even including an English-speaking Taoist priest (or at least I understood he had already being "certified") - are very traditional Chinese who are dedicated to the preservation of traditional Chinese culture and customs, as evidenced by our common membership in these heritage yahoogroups, and yet educated about issues of sexuality and equality of all mankind. This is also evidence that Taoism has no issues at all with homosexuality. The religions with issues are the monotheistic religions that originated in the Middle East.
How the world has changed!
Really? Next door was a staunch Christian family who had a party too - a birthday party that involved lots of loud prayers - maybe they were praying for what they saw as a Satanic party next door to go away... they didn't seem particularly friendly to guests of their neighbours who passed their gates.
And fundamentalists continue to broadcast their extremist messages everywhere in this country.
Whatever the case, the world is changing and Singapore, too, is moving towards a more inclusive society. It is plainly nonsensical to think that gay equality and gay marriages would destroy marriages in the heterosexual world - there is no logic at all in that argument, especially when we see heterosexual marriages fall apart on their own accord.
Hopefully, it would not be too long before prejudices erode and those who hope for a secular and fair and equal society would eventually prevail over radical religious fundamentalists.
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