14th September 2007

Logbook 14-09-07 Entry

Finally, a 100 visitors to my blogs. Maybe I should get a separate counter for each of my blogs.

Thanks to all those who have visited my blogs. Hope that you would come for more.

A topic that is raging in Singapore is whether a gay teacher should have come out in the open declaring he is gay or not.

There are a few issues at work here.

1) Singapore is still an Asian society where such things as homosexuality are still a taboo to some people. Hence in a sense, a very sensitive topic. I would admit that I admire his courage coming open or clean with his facts. But as many can see in the newspaper, he took down his blog entry after realizing that too many people are reading. Is it due to the culture or pressure? One would wonder.

2)Being a gay teacher in an all guys school, would it be a problem? Many parents would be shocked or worried about it. The major concern here is the influence of the teacher on the students. There are two school of thoughts on this. Being a gay teacher, should not means that he would or could influence the sexuality of his students in any sense by doing his job as a teacher. However, if he takes advantage of the situation, then that's different.

3) Would his career be affected? Being honest is not a bad thing, but in this case, I may worry for his career as school and ministry may not look kindly on his actions and the storm of upheavals caused. Another reason which I admire him for is that by coming out open, he would be mentally prepared for the possible results from it. The worst case is that he may lose his job.

Although I may admire his actions, but it may be not the most suitable situation to come clean yet. Yes, society has became more open to accepting the gay issue, but not to every extent it is tolerable for people. Asian would still take time to adapt to this sort of scenario. Hopefully the good of it is that people can learn to accept the reality of gays.

PS: I have nothing against gays, just stating what are my feelings on the matter.

Some news for those interesed, UN has passed a non-binding resolution to protect the human, land and resources rights of the estimated 370 Million Indigenous people over the protest of US, Australia and Canada. What a victory for the ordinary people over the interests of just a few nations.