Would the story make it to the mainstream newspapers?

Nothing on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Chinese-language Lianhe Zaobao carried it. You can see a translation of it in Male teacher comes out on blog. It had the following features:

• It clearly mentioned Otto Fong's name. 
• It had his picture alongside. 
• It mentioned the school, Raffles Institution. 
• It quoted significant sentences from Fong's blogpost. 
• It filled readers in on Fong's previous accomplishments as a playwright and cartoonist.

Furthermore, parents and students interviewed say that if a teacher has upright character and dedication for teaching, his sexual orientation should not be a concern.

Raffles Institution Secondary 4 student Huang Maoxuan (16) described Otto Fong's teaching style to be very lively and fun, and sustains students' interest. He is a good teacher, and hard to come by.

He feels that even if Otto Fong comes out publicly, it would not affect students' impression on him.

Parent Wu Shuqian (46, housewife) thinks that dedicated and responsible teachers should not be ostracized or reprimanded because they are gay.

She said, "From what I know, Mr Fong is good at teaching. A teacher like him is hard to come by. It would be a great pity if he is forced to leave because of this incident."

Another parent Mdm Lim (42, housewife) said that she felt a little uncomfortable when she first found out that a teacher at school came out publicly. However, she felt that if he does not overstep boundaries, there is no need for him to leave. 

-- Zaobao, 12 Sept 2007

You can sense a certain gutsiness about the reporting from this newspaper.

One day later, Thursday, 13 September 2007, the story appeared on the front page of the tabloid New Paper. It took as its headline the claim that "Blog not meant for students", which it appeared to attribute to Otto Fong, but as you would have noted from the salmon sidebar above, may actually have originated come from the school.

In fact, if you read Fong's open letter, you get the sense that it was meant for his students as for the general public. He wrote, with not a little regret:

Yet, in the eight years I have taught, I have done little for that small group of students who are gay.

Further down,

I feel I am shortchanging both society and myself by staying in the closet. I must be true to myself. If my colleagues and students, both gay and straight, see that being true to one’s own self has great value, perhaps we can produce a new generation who is truly courageous. A new generation of young people who are proud to be themselves, no matter what difference they have from their classmates. Then I will have succeeded in providing them a better education than I had the opportunity to receive during my years in school.

Why is the newspaper just taking at face value whether the school or ministry authorities tell them, and not look a little more critically at the text?

Other features of the New Paper story were:

• It did not mention Otto Fong's name. 
• It did not mention his school 
• It reported that "The reaction of the local Internet community has been mixed" when in fact the preponderance of comments and commentaries have been extremely supportive. 
• The parent that the New Paper found was opposed to Fong's openness.

Mrs Catherine Gasper, said, "He should keep such things private - I don't think it's our business to know about his personal life."

However, she qualified it by saying, "There's a lack of awareness that comes from a lack of contact with (gays), so people will tend to go along with their own biases and prejudices."

Does it strike you as absurd? The story was already all over the 'net. While not all teenagers in Singapore might be aware of it, it would be a safe bet to say all Raffles Institution schoolboys were more than aware of it by then. What purpose did the New Paper's coyness serve?

The only effect such an editorial decision had was to reinforce the government's preference for gay people to remain invisible and faceless, and thus for people to continue believing that all teachers -- all respectable adults -- were straight. What agenda is this?

Nothing again on Friday. Finally, on Saturday, the Straits Times mentioned it, not as a news story, but as an commentary by Paul Jacob, the deputy political editor, titled A teacher's disclosure and the issue is out in the open.

It is one thing to [go public about being gay] to those nearest and dearest – family, relatives, friends – and another to do so on openly accessible platform like the Internet. It is apt to spark all manner of responses and consequences...

Further on,

His decision may not have the well-meaning effect he intended. He should have thought about how it could affect colleagues elsewhere before making his arbitrary decision.

In effect, Jacob is suggesting that if gay people come out, doing so creates problems for other people. It may therefore be irresponsible of them to do so.

This is part of a tendency observable in many people to transfer the "problem of homosexuality" onto gay people, when in actual fact, the problem is that of homophobia and which lies very much on the heterosexual side. By this tendency's formulation, gay people are the trouble-makers should they come out or speak out and thereby disturb the cosy heterosexist assumptions of society. Their preferred solution is that gays and lesbians should continue to carry the burden of silence and discrimination so that others are not inconvenienced by being forced to reexamine their attitudes and actions.

The immorality of such logic is astounding. It's almost like saying, in a case of a company where mismanagement and corruption are rife, whistleblowers and unpaid workers should shut up, lest the accountants and auditors have to do more work setting things right.

One other part of Jacob's op-ed struck me as particularly ill-reasoned. He wrote,

Was that the trigger? That in outing himself, he would be in a position to be of help to those youths in school who may be uncertain about their orientation at this stage of their lives?

If so, what then would he tell those who seek his advice?

One has to question the ability and the appropriateness of someone who has outed himself being able to provide neutral, unbiased advice...

I really wonder what advice Jacob himself would give. First of all, in my opinion, not all teenagers are "confused". Some are very clear that they are gay, others very clear that they are straight. But for those who really are uncertain, the advice is not "think of yourself as straight unless otherwise proven", which may be the advice Jacob had in mind (and why he thinks an out gay person is incapable of giving).

No. It should be "take your time."

"You will, at some point, be able to figure it out. But remember this: whether you eventually discover yourself gay or straight, they are both, in secular thought and many religions' understanding, morally equal. It's not a question of right and wrong, but just different, like straight hair and curly hair, lighter skin and darker skin."

"In the meantime, be alert to peer pressure. You don't have to follow the crowd; having sex is not some kind of achievement. Be a bit more introspective in order to understand your own feelings. Be honest with yourself and with others around you. Don't take advantage of others, but also be careful not to let others take advantage of you, so that you don't end up doing what you're really not keen to do."

In saying this to a teenager, does it matter whether the adult is straight or gay? I don't think so.

But does it matter, when telling the young person about being honest to himself and to others, whether the adult is himself honest?

Sure it does. And that is why it is wrong for the education system and lead writers to come up with all sorts of excuses why gay teachers should remain in the closet.

© Yawning Bread