I sent this response to 'Today' newspaper but it was not published.

I refer to Thio Su Mien’s letter ‘Is homosexuality truly normal’, 9 Feb 2006.

She conceded that homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of disorders more than 30 years ago. Since then, a considerable body of new psychological and neurological research has done nothing but support the view that homosexual orientation is just another variation of normal.

In her discussion, she characterized that 1973 decision as buckling under pressure tactics, but one should note that in the 32 years since, the APA has not reversed the decision despite ample opportunity to do so.

Nor did she give credence to the fact that all other advanced countries – Europe, UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, even China – likewise do not consider homosexuality a disorder. Neither does the World Health Organisation. To repeat an exaggerated account of a heated debate 32 years ago at one conference while ignoring this global professional consensus is less than transparent.

Thio cited Robert Spitzer’s recent study where he said that in a few people, changing sexual orientation may be possible. This study has been heavily criticized for its sampling and methodology. His subjects were recruited through the very agencies that claim they can change sexual orientation, and 78 percent of them have actually helped promote these groups publicly! Furthermore, Spitzer’s findings were based on self-reports from his subjects taken at face value [1]. One has to wonder about motives.

It’s nothing short of incredible that Thio’s argument hinges on this controversial study against the entire weight of global research and professional opinion.

Liberty League, in its public statements, has tended to speak of homosexual orientation as a "gender disorder" which it is not. It has also spoken of "coming out of homosexuality" which indicates that it supports programs to turn gay people straight. Psychologists have spoken out against such discredited attempts to change sexual orientation, given the many cases of severe mental distress, including suicide, caused by these pseudo-therapies. The issue is not whether Liberty League’s programs are another form of doing good. They do real harm. The government should not be funding any program that poses such dangers.

Singaporeans should be aware that, today, the only organized lobby that continues to insist that homosexuality is a medical condition in spite of research and professional opinion is that originating from the United States. This lobby is strongly identified with what are called the evangelical denominations. Their arguments are really medico-secular gloss over their interpretations of the Bible, interpretations that are not shared by other Christians.

It is for this reason that when Liberty League shows itself to take similar positions, it reveals its religious colours. The problem is not that the people behind Liberty League are Christians in their personal beliefs. The problem is that the program’s content is inseparable from religious dogma.

The National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC)’s own rules require that all programs be secular, and the state should not knowingly promote any religious belief in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. It would be a sad day if our government and its affiliated arms violate their own rules to serve sectarian interests.

* * * * *

On 14 February 2006, a letter by Edmund Eh appeared in the Straits Times' Online Forum. Eh is the Honorary Secretary of a Roman Catholic group called the Apostolate for Catholic Truth. In this letter, Eh tried to justify his stance against condoms by referring to studies emanating from UNAIDS, which purportedly demonstrated that condoms had a high failure rate and HIV reduction could be achieved without a condom strategy.

In his blog, shianux wondered whether he was being dishonest or just plain moronic. Shianux said a simple google search would show that UNAIDS said no such thing. In fact, the thrust of its accumulated experience was that condoms were effective and useful.

Eh had also said in his letter that "the nations with the highest levels of condom availability -- like Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa - continue to have the highest HIV prevalence" implying that condoms have been ineffective in stopping the disease. 

First of all, isn't it dreadfully obvious that a more likely explanation is that condom availability is high in those countries because it is a necessary response to the HIV rates there, without which the situation might have been worse? 

Secondly, the source document that Eh cited itself said that "The impact of condoms may be limited by inconsistent use, low use among those at highest risk, and negative interactions with other strategies," as pointed out by Shianux in his blog. Condoms may be available, but it's no use if they aren't used.

And one of the reasons they aren't used is "negative interactions with other strategies" which sounds to me like a diplomatic way of saying that when religious nuts in their attempt to promote abstinence through scare tactics keep telling people condoms are useless, it's hardly any wonder why people don't use condoms even when available.

* * * * *

It is mind-blowing that people like Thio continue to insist that homosexual orientation is a mental illness despite all the facts available. And people like Eh continue to insist that condoms are useless despite the very sources he cited. One suspects that these pseudo-scientific assertions are made only  as surrogates for the more fundamental belief that these -- whether homosexuality or contraception -- are grievous biblical sins. However, as religious arguments cut no ice in public debate in a secular state, one suspects that these slash and burn arguments are used in lieu, never mind if they are so faulty. Anything that serves the cause of Yahweh, the Christian god, is justifiable, no matter how illogical and absurd. The ends justify the means.

It is easy to impute dishonesty or stupidity to people like Thio and Eh, as Shianux has done. But I think there is a better explanation.

The curse of being such visual animals as humans are, is that if something can't be seen, we have a much harder time grasping it. Psychological differences are one of those invisible things. In the absence of visible difference, we simply assume that everybody else's thought processes are the same as ours. Yet this almost certainly isn't so.

For most of us, while our immediate means of comprehending the world is instinctive, intuitive and experiential, we seldom stop only at the subjective. We normally check our conclusions against whatever empirical data and rational analysis we can obtain.

In the article, Let's cool down and look at this rationally, this point was made:

A noise outside the house may be an intruder, or it may be snow sliding off the roof -- in the light of experience, we can tell which theory is right. Just as we use trial and error to test and revise our assumptions in small matters, we should bring empirical evidence to bear on the beliefs we hold about ultimate things.

Let me extend this example further.

Say we're woken up by sounds at night. At first, we wonder what's going on. Why is a dog barking? What's that muffled thump? Is that a window creaking? The thought of burglars, perhaps ghosts, crosses our mind. Our hearts beat faster; the blanket is pulled up. But then, when we listen carefully, we hear the rustling of leaves, and something rolling across the lawn, perhaps blown by a rising wind. The thump, we realise, we've heard before -- it’s the branch of the tree hitting the eaves.

And so we revise our assessment based on the empirical evidence and conclude that it's just a coming storm.

But what if our mind is stuck in the belief that ghosts have risen? If we can't let go of that belief, we can't reconstruct an objective reality based on a dispassionate evaluation of the evidence. On the contrary, our mind is likely to interpret the noises in a way that reinforces the preconceived idea. The rustling, the thumping, the whoosh of something flying across the lawn and the creaking of a window -- they all say ghosts. Definitely.

Perhaps this is what is happening in the minds of the religious homophobes. Whatever they may say about scriptures, etc, it's their subjective belief that homosexuality just feels wrong that is the unshakeable "reality" to them. And once they are stuck in that groove, nothing can convince them otherwise. On the contrary, everything else, including the reading of scriptures, let alone science, is bent to "prove" the neurotic belief right.

At this point, it may be pertinent to ask, are we talking about religious belief, or a form of madness? At what point does one become the other?

Yet, at the same time, they do seem to realize that generally, the world operates on the basis of reason, and so they find themselves engaged on the battleground of empirical data and reason. Yet their attempts are so full of holes, you can't but wonder whether they know what they are doing.

It's like people who are tone deaf, but who still recognise that one way of winning friends is to tag along to karaoke parties, which means they can't avoid joining in a song or two. The singing, like Thio's letter, will doubtless be laughably bad. But the problem, as you can see, is not that they are bad singers, but that they are inherently tone-deaf. This is traceable to a neurological difference between them and us. What is obvious to us -- they are way out of tune -- is unappreciable to them.

* * * * *

Yet, the battle against misinformation spread by religious fringe groups rage on for decades, and not just over sexual orientation and condoms. It rages on about the character and place of women in society, about evolution, stem cell research and beauty pageants. It seems that when one side of an argument claims to ground its beliefs in religion, it is accorded a level of credibility well in excess of that warranted by facts or reason.

The conventional view is that faith, in general, is something self-evidently desirable whose contents should not be scrutinised too closely.

(From the appendix Let's cool down and look at this rationally)

© Yawning Bread