July 2003

COOS pastor wants "a nation of righteous Christians"

    

  

 
The Church of Our Saviour (Anglican, Charismatic) has long been known to be the most homophobic church in Singapore. Their special indignation is reserved for the "sin of homosexuality". They are less indignant, hardly a peep, I hear, about other sins, old ones such as that of gluttony, or newer ones such as divorce. You don't hear them calling for a ban on overweight people in government. You don't hear them calling on the government to ban divorcees from the civil service either or repealing the ungodly law that permits divorce.

 

Associated with the Church of Our Saviour (COOS) is Choices which has been promoting itself as having the solution to homosexuality. Its methods include intense prayer, and what many have described as brainwashing.[1] It is linked to the US-based Exodus ex-gay movement.

This month, COOS and Choices must have felt their moment to shine has come. The gay issue was nigh.

In the box beside is a first-hand report by someone who attended the evening service on Saturday, 19 July. A well-known fundamentalist pastor, Derek Hong, blasted the former bishop of the Methodist Church, Dr Yap Kim Hao for writing a pro-gay letter to the press.

Pastor Derek Hong also said that he wanted Singapore to become nation of righteous Christians. Which is to say that COOS' mission is to change this place from a multi-religious, secular state into a theologically- driven Christian state. Never mind the strife such an attempt may lead to.

He claimed that the gay side is misusing science to "justify their sinful lifestyle". But as you will see below, the misuse is very much on COOS' side.

Together with his guest speaker from Canada, he raised the spectre of the devil taking hold of Singapore, and made wild claims that the churches in the US are no longer allowed to preach that homosexual acts are sinful. And that in Canada, Christianity is being persecuted, and even Bibles may be banned. Half-truths, extremely exaggerated, meant to portray Christianity as under seige, the better to stoke fervour into rage.

One could say that this kind of incitement breaches a sensible code of conduct for religious organisations in Singapore. 

COOS' letter to Straits Times rejected

Sometime earlier in July, COOS had written a letter to the Straits Times. The Straits Times did not publish it, and apparently COOS is very unhappy about that. You can see the letter titled "Born gay? There is no scientific proof" in the side bar to the article Playing fast and loose with science.

The COOS accuses the gay community of using science to mislead. Instead, they are the ones doing so, as I will explain.

 
 Slick and slippery arguments

The letter first cites the study by Bailey and Pillard 1991, which found that if one identical twin was gay, 52% of the time, his twin brother was also gay. It also cites a larger study by Bailey et al, 2000, of 14,000 twins, where it was found that if one identical twin was gay, 38% of the time, his identical brother was also gay.

The letter asserts that if indeed homosexuality is due to a gene, the concordance rate should be 100%, which is true, and that since it is only 52% or 38%, it actually proves that homosexuality isn’t due to a gene (hold on.... not so simple. It isn't an either-or question). COOS goes on to say that therefore, environmental factors must predominate (misleading deduction)

It's misleading because the above quietly associates the notion of “born gay” with the effect of a single gene. COOS’s logic goes: Since it is not due to a single gene, therefore it must be environmental.

Now, most laymen too make this simplistic equation, but precisely because this misunderstanding is so widespread, anyone relying on scientific findings must have the obligation to first correct it. He has to explain that when some trait is “inborn”, it doesn’t mean it must be due to a gene. There are other biological factors that can also make a condition “inborn”. So, showing that something isn’t completely genetic is NOT the same as showing that it is due to the “environment”, whatever “environment” means.

Yet, COOS leaves this simplistic equation uncorrected, and even rides on it, leaving the reader to think that the scientific studies prove that homosexuality is due to “environmental” factors.

And then COOS accuses the gay side of dishonesty by saying that “Ironically, this study has been cited to support the idea of a gay gene when it really doesn't.” This is plain untrue. Gay people say that their homosexuality is a natural condition to them, they believe that they are born with it. No serious researcher, not even ones sympathetic to the gay cause, claims that homosexuality is due to a “gay gene”.

COOS sets up this false bogey of a gay gene (in the singular, not plural) and then demolishes it. Not a very honest way of writing, if you ask me.

Now, let me explain carefully what exactly the studies showed, and here is where COOS’s selectivity is glaringly obvious. While the 1991 Bailey and Pillard study found the concordance rate between identical twins was 52%, they also found that the concordance rate between fraternal twins was 22% and that between non-twin brothers 9%. The concordance rate between adopted brothers (no genetic relationship) was 11%. Why didn’t COOS mention these figures?

What is starkly clear is that genetically identical brothers (identical twins) have a far higher concordance rate than brothers who were not so genetically close. This strongly indicates that genes do play a role. True, the results clearly exclude any theory of a gay gene, but who ever said there was one gay gene and it controlled everything?

Alright, so genes play a role. Does that mean the other role is played by the environment? Well, it depends on what you mean by “environment”.

 

A first-hand summary of the happenings at the Church of Our Saviour, on 19 July 2003:

There had been silence in the Church of Our Saviour for many weeks since the article “The Lion in Winter” appeared in Time magazine.

At the evening service on Saturday, 19 July, Pastor Derek Hong broke the silence. He made the following announcement. 
  
1 It is a serious national issue that cannot be ignored.
2 The gay issue in The Straits Times has caused a lot of confusion for the general public.
3 The pro-gay letters by Dr. Anthony Yeo and Rev. Dr. Yap Kim Hao have no substance and were written out of their conscience and based on liberal theology.
4 That gays are using useless scientific evidence with no proper research done to justify their sinful lifestyle.
5 Homosexuals can be completely healed and that Choices can do a good job.
6 The Church of Our Saviour does not discriminate against gays and homosexual sin is no different from any other sins. All sins are sins. But the encouragement and recognition of such sinful lifestyle as normal and not a sin at all at the national level should not be permitted.
7 The devil is trying to undermine the very social fabric of the nation.
8 What happened in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s concerning the gay movement is already happening in Singapore where gays want to be heard. He blamed the church in the USA for keeping silent when the gay movement was taking place on a small scale. Now it is out of control. He said that Churches in the USA can no longer preach that homosexual acts is sin. This must be stopped at all cost. So the church in Singapore in not keeping quiet anymore.
9 He will mobilise churches in Singapore to stand up against the gay issue.
10 He wants Singapore to be a nation of righteous Christians without the contamination of the gay lifestyle
11 Homosexuality should not be allowed to come out to the surface and made acceptable to the nation.

After the long announcement, Pastor Derek made the congregation go into a session of fervent prayer. For 15 minutes or so, the congregation was obliged to pray in groups of 3 persons against the gay issue. A guest preacher from Canada by the name of Rev. Dr. Stefan Sos was there. He was invited by the church all the way from Canada. Rev. Dr. Stefan Sos also spoke against the gay issue before he started preaching the normal mainstream sermon which had no relation to gay issue. He urged the churches in Singapore not to allow what happened in Canada recently to happen in Singapore. He said the churches in Canada is now being persecuted by the gays and has lost her freedom. He said the gays wanted to ban the Bibles from the country.

Well I can see that Derek Hong is determined to fight to the very end. He will not give up. This coming Friday, 25 July is the church monthly Corporate Prayer Meeting and I believe that they will pray charismatic style very fervently against the gay issue (will not be surprised if they spend one hour or more on this topic). You can expect loud praying and members shouting at the top of their voices, crying out to the Lord. Some will break down in tears over the "sins of the nation”

 

Look at the figures for fraternal twins (22%) and non-twin brothers (9%). Fraternal twins are no closer genetically than non-twin brothers, yet the former have a greater concordance rate. Why? The big difference is that fraternal twins shared the same womb. In fact, there have been other studies showing that sexual orientation could have been laid down in the foetal period.

Is the womb an “environment”? You could call it that. But it’s also a biological environment, awash with hormones, antibodies and other biochemcial agents. But the point to remember is that if sexuality were formed in the womb environment, it would still be inborn.

COOS deliberately oversimplifies the issue into genes versus “environment”, where “environment” is, towards the end of the letter (see paragraph 11) said to mean ”inadequate same-sex parenting, weak model for gender identification, sexual abuse and experimentation”. In other words, raised by sick gay people, absent father syndrome, molested by perverts and influenced by pornography, the usual litany of unsubstantiated claims, repeated over and over again like scratched records.

Paragraph 11 of the letter brings in the paedophile. This propaganda technique serves to reinforce the stereotypical association between homosexuality and paedophilia. No facts needed.

As for LeVay’s work, COOS makes much more of it than most other people have. It is recognized to be a small, highly tentative study, but it was still important in that it opened way back in 1991 the question of how sexuality might have an organic basis rather than just exist as thoughts, something that people had assumed prior to the study. Beyond that, no one has suggested that LeVay's study was a major pillar in the argument for the biological causation of sexuality. It is COOS that is obsessed with it, probably because it was one of the earliest studies questioning the homosexuality-is-sin argument.

 

The persecutor pretends to be the victim

It takes quite a bit of gall for COOS to say what they said in paragraph 10. They wrote that "genuine tolerance must encompass the freedom to discuss whether homosexuality is good and right."

Heavens, who was it who has been trying to shut us up? Who have been completely agreeable with censorship laws that gag gay people and sodomy laws that drive gay people into the closet, too fearful to speak up?

"Otherwise," the letter continues, "we will be ruled by the tyranny of the minority".

The gall of it! The gay cause is one of equality, not of forcing heterosexuals to become homosexual. It is the small but fanatic band of fundamentalists, of which COOS is a leading part, that is trying to impose their idea of heaven on earth upon everyone else. 

Based on the year 2000 census, Christians made up 14.6% of Singapore's population. Of these, some are liberal and moderate Christians [2], not many are fundamentalists like COOS. If that is not tyranny of the minority, I don't know what is.

 
 The fundamentalists need a rallying cry

Let me quote what a friend said about the these Christian fundamentalists in a posting he made to SiGNeL, the mailing list.

 

Eaststar wrote:

The conservative Christian churches' obsession with homosexuality is, sadly, something with which I am all too familiar.

In the US, I saw how sermon after sermon, church letter after church letter, press release after press release, focused on how homosexuals were detroying the moral fabric of the nation,corrupting the youth, and generally hastening the arrival of the Apocalypse. It's just astounding how they focus on homosexuality more than they do with issues like poverty, the plight of the homeless, the breakdown of the family, drug abuse, etc., all of which one could reasonably assume would pose a far greater threat to civilisation as we know it than what two men or two women are doing in a bedroom.

Right wing ministers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson talk so much about homosexuals that one wonders what their real fascination with this issue is. I gained first-hand experience with this because as a Christian myself, I was involved in numerous church ministries and groups, until I realised how anti-gay they were.

[snip]

I highly recommend the book "Stranger At The Gate" by the Rev. Mel White, a powerful and insightful chronicle of a gay minister's acceptance of his own homosexuality. Mel White was the official ghostwriter of the Rev Jerry Falwell and other conservatives, and in this book, he offers tremendous insight into the way the Christian churches think, and why they have decided to make homosexuals their target.

The reasons, we see, are more political than religious. After the end of the Cold War, the conservatives no longer has the USSR and Communism as the Great Enemy, and they needed a new cause and target, against which they could rally the faithful and raise funds. Homosexuals became the easy target, and today, the same phrases that were once used against the Soviets in fund-raising letters are now used against gays and lesbians. "A great threat to our way of life" and "urgent need for your support to battle this great evil" etc are bandied about with gay abandon. Given the powerful influence of the US Christian conservatives worldwide, it's not surprising that the churches in Singapore would take their cue and follow to fight the same enemy.

 

 

There you have it. Politics under the guise of religion.

© Yawning Bread 

 

A summary of Bailey and Pillard's findings:
(URL of source)

Richard Pillard of the Boston University School of Medicine and Michael Bailey of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois collaborated on studies of twins and homosexuality. They compared the percentage of male siblings who were both gay with the amount of genetic material they shared, in an effort to find evidence for a genetic basis of homosexuality. Their most frequently cited study was published in 1991, 'A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation.'

Bailey and Pillard were interested in pursuing a biological explanation of sexual orientation for a variety of reasons. They were persuaded by some hormonal research, other twin studies that had been performed, and by a belief that proving a biological component to sexual orientation could result in more positive attitudes toward gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

Bailey and Pillard recruited subjects for their study through advertisements in gay newspapers in cities across the Midwest and the Southwest. They looked for gay men, 18 years or older that had a twin, or an adoptive or otherwise 'genetically unrelated' brother. They compared the sexual orientation of the brothers and looked for childhood gender nonconformity or 'sissy-type' behavior in boys, which is often considered a common indicator of homosexuality.

Bailey and Pillard studied:
56 pairs of identical twins
54 pairs of fraternal twins
142 non-twin brothers of twins
57 pairs of adoptive brothers

Among twin pairs where one twin was gay, Bailey and Pillard found that:
52 percent of the identical twins were both gay
22 percent of the fraternal twins were both gay
9 percent of the non-twin brothers were both gay
11 percent of the adopted, or genetically unrelated brothers were both gay

Bailey and Pillard concluded that the patter of identical twins having a higher percentage rate than other siblings is consistent with the idea that sexual orientation is genetically influenced.

The findings also suggest that factors outside of genetics can guide sexual orientation:

Fraternal twins and non-twin brothers share the same percentage of genetic material --- 50 percent. If sexual orientation, however, were to have a strong genetic basis, one would expect them to share the same percentage of concordance, which they did not.

Almost half (48%) of the identical twins did not share the same sexual orientation.

Some critiques include:

Bailey and Pillard share a concern with others that men with gay brothers would be more likely to respond to an advertisement to participate in a study. Gay men may not approach a brother to participate in a study, if the heterosexual brother is not comfortable with his gay brother's sexuality.

Respondents were classified only as heterosexual or non-heterosexual -- without regard to a range of sexual behavior and orientations.

Conclusion

Bailey and Pillard's methodology has been described as 'painstaking' and they are careful to draw modest conclusions from their study. While their study is often used to further the idea of a genetic marker, Bailey and Pillard drew no such conclusions. Once again, they concluded that their findings are consistent with the idea that homosexuality is genetically influenced. They did not locate a gene, nor identify how genetics could influence sexual orientation. Bailey and Pillard's evidence, moreover, can be used to argue that genes are not the determining factor in sexual orientation.

[from Why ask Why? Addressing the Research on Homosexuality and Biology, P-FLAG, 1101 14th Street N.W., Suite 1030, Washington, D.C. 20005]

 

 

Footnotes

  1. See the Yawning Bread article A proven ministry, about someone who tried to be straight for 14 years with the Church of Our Savior, only to end up with a nervous breakdown
    Return to where you left off
  2. See the letter by Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao, the retired Bishop of the Methodist Church in SIngapore.
    Return to where you left off

 

Addenda

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