Why did I start this? Very simple, really. I needed to speak my mind about gay equality. Thus the early articles had a heavy representation of gay-related topics.

In 1996, homosexuality was largely taboo; what opinions people typically held were completely unfounded, conjured from utter ignorance. (Some of these people and their opinions are still around today, but every year that passes, they look more and more like museum pieces.)

There was plenty of material about gay rights on the internet, but firstly, they related to the Western experience and secondly, with extremely low internet penetration here, hardly anyone knew that such information existed. Even gay Singaporeans were only then beginning to discover the resource. By means of this site, I set out to convey that information to Singaporeans, and through me -- someone of Chinese ancestry, living here, not in exile in San Francisco or New York -- recolour that information as something relevant to Singapore. After all, I am Singaporean. I am gay. You cannot so easily dismiss what you hear from me as merely Western perversion.

I have never been anonymous. From day one, my name was right up there. Within months, as soon as I learnt how to upload images -- in fact even before I learnt how to resize them to fit the screen -- I put my face up. It was humongous. I had to take it down quickly to rework it.

Did I never fear the government getting on my case? I might have once, but even prior to launching Yawning Bread, the Internal Security Department (ISD) had been keeping watch on People Like Us for a few years. I figured that my file was already an inch thick. What would be the point of trying to remain anonymous?

While I intended this to be a gay site, and still do, I recognised quite early that gay issues cannot be discussed in isolation from other issues of society and politics. Progress towards gay equality cannot come about without a society appreciating liberty and justice generally. It cannot come without citizens that have respect for facts instead of faith in myths. Gradually, I found myself writing more on social and governance issues than on specifically gay topics. I felt that people needed to understand the values that underpin the moral case for equality, which happen to be the same values that make for a liberal democracy.

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I am a liberal. The one value around which other values must defer to is liberty for the individual. It is through autonomy that he has control over his own life, and consequently his own happiness.

This is not to say that happiness for everyone comes only through splendid isolation; it obviously is not so. Humans are social animals, and most of us are happiest and healthiest within communities. But it is liberty that allows us to choose, or if necessary, form the communities we like and which allows us to flourish.

I believe that our relationship with the state is contractual. We do things for the state, such as acceding to its laws and paying taxes, in return for it doing things for us. The state has no claim on us unearned by its contractual delivery, and since as a liberal, I would want liberty to be the central tenet of the contract, I expect that its laws and the use of taxes collected should be consistent with liberty.

Liberty does not end where the state begins. Rather, the state has the contractual obligation to be a guarantor and promoter of liberty.

In some ways, this is easy to understand, such as how we expect the state to defend our civil rights, ensure security and access to justice. We can also see the relationship between liberty and free enterprise.

In other ways, it is harder. How does compelling us to pay taxes square with liberty? Why should the state get involved in education, healthcare or the provision of other social services? In regulating alcohol and tobacco? Does this mean that the state has no justifiable role in promoting economic development?

No. These roles are justifiable to a liberal like me, in fact essential, because they are enablers of liberty. Free enterprise is well and good as a principle; in practice, market failure is all too evident. External costs are not accounted for; they are silently passed to others to bear, which is hardly just. The market may not provide certain things at all, e.g. healthcare, education or housing for the poor. Unbridled free enterprise has a tendency to lead to extreme concentrations of wealth. The rich then parlay their wealth into influence and power, which not only make them even richer, but inexorably leads to greater exploitation of the less well-off. There is a net reduction in overall liberty. This is the justification for regulating economic activity.

Poverty is about the greatest nullifier of self-autonomy and happiness; this fact alone obliges the state to redistribute wealth and provide social services.

Yet, more is not necessarily better. Over-regulate the economy, and vibrancy is stifled; economic liberty negated. Over-provide social services, and the costs go through the roof. The taxes needed to support them become inhibitors of another individual freedom -– to spend one's money the way one wishes.

Hence, unlike civil rights or access to justice, in these areas, there are trade-offs. We have to find an optimum level of state involvement -- a matter of trial and error and a subject of never-ending political debate.

Yawning Bread has long joined that debate. Generally, I have criticised the Singapore state for being too neglectful -– no, downright contemptuous -– of the first set of state obligations to liberty: civil rights, justice, freedom of expression. And of course, the state has been dismissive of legal equality for lesbian, gay and transgendered persons.

From time to time, I have also criticised it for doing too little with respect to the second set of state obligations -– wealth redistribution and the provision of social services. We seem to place too much faith in trickle-down economics. Surely, by now, the widening income gap and the stagnation of the bottom few deciles of the population prove that in practice, there is hardly any trickling down, whatever the theory may say.

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One unexpected consequence of wading into a more general debate, especially at a time when, despite an increasing number of socio-political blogs, most of them adopt stances critical of the government, is that in many readers' minds, all sites, including Yawning Bread, belong to a single "anti-government" set, sharing the same philosophy.

This is partly perpetuated by the mainstream media's tendency to lump all blogs and forums together as some kind of discreditable rabble, but you'd be surprised how many regular surfers too fail to distinguish the different political philosophies espoused.

While I don't read blogs extensively, there is only one that I know of which consistently adopts similar liberal values as this site -– Singabloodypore. Possibly, Mr Wang Says So.

(Forgive me if your site does too and I'm not familiar with it.)

Most other bloggers, when I read between the lines, do not strike me as believers in liberalism, but are probably more typical of the political attitudes prevalent in Singapore -– to the left of the government (i.e. more socialist, more populist) on economic policies, and more or less in line with the government when it comes to social, law and order and moral attitudes.

To them, Yawning Bread will sometimes seem destabilisingly radical. I speak out against capital punishment when most Singaporeans seem to love it. I speak up for foreign talent -– in other words, the freedom of movement -– when most Singaporeans use them as convenient punching bags. I think we should get rid of our security blankets of race and ethnicity when most cannot imagine letting go.

It doesn't bother me very much that I stand apart from most. I am gay, after all. I'm used to it. What I find amusing is that there are readers who don't even realise that I do not espouse the values they hold dear. Do they assume that theirs is the only set of political values?

A funny thing then happens when they encounter Yawning Bread. They read their own values into my site, picking and choosing bits of what I say to support certain preconceived ideas. You see this phenomenon in some of the comments I get. Or they're shocked that I don't share their (usually illiberal) ideas. I'm still learning how to overcome this.

However, it should be borne in mind that most readers never comment. I have long ago decided that the ratio of comments to page views is so low, the comment-posters are probably unrepresentative.

I also get emails. Nearly every article leads to at least one or two emails in response, sometimes as many as ten. There are days when I have trouble keeping up with them and replying. My apologies. 

Emails tend to be completely different from comments, both in tone and substance. A typical one would have many paragraphs, offering a treasure trove of useful facts, references and background information pertaining to the subject I had just discussed, with valuable insights and rational arguments. They may not agree with my point of view, but I do respect evidence-supported, intelligently-reasoned arguments. I appreciate the way they add to my own understanding of the issues.

To all my readers, including the great silent majority whom I don't hear from, but whose loyalty I can sense from the hits, I shall take this opportunity to express my thanks. It gives meaning to all the hours I spend on this site. It gives me hope -– that I am not totally, deludedly, extravagantly crazy in believing that Singapore, and the world, can be a better place.

© Yawning Bread