I was also excited to visit your pair of domed Durians. The Esplanade Theatres are indeed a handsome, world-class performing arts center that host a full complement of worthy productions and that seem to bustle with crowds day and night. My excitement arose from the fact that during my sojourn here from 1981-1983 I had the honor and privilege to serve as vice chairman of the 1982 Singapore Arts Festival, the nation’s third, but arguably its first full-scale, truly international arts festival. At that time the venerable Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall and the open-air National Theatre were the main performance spaces available and we had to scrounge for auditoriums and a variety of venues to hold the range of shows offered. I was public affairs manager for Mobil Oil Singapore (now Exxon Mobil), then one of the festival’s pioneer sponsors, and also served as chairman of the American Business Council’s Cultural Affairs Committee.

I cite these positions because they enabled me to meet and work with leaders in Singapore’s government and industry with whom I enjoyed good and productive relationships and who broadened my world view. My experience here was a rich one because of the exposure to Singapore’s cultural heritage and its diversity of individuals, religions and beliefs.

I was honored to observe Thaipusam in a temple courtyard with Indian friends and felt an emotional kinship with their experience; I participated with Singaporean friends in some of the rituals of Ramadan and the joys of Idl Fitri; I read and learned to honor some of the precepts of Buddhism; as a Christian, I occasionally attended services at the Barker Road Methodist Church. It was in Singapore that I learned to appreciate and respect these diverse beliefs. I came to the conclusion that there are many prophets and many routes that lead to divinity and that, in the end, He or She is one and the same – the Father and/or Mother of us all. And I found that each religion speaks of compassion, tolerance, love and peace.

I was an integral part of Singapore’s diversity for another reason: I am gay.

That’s a statement I could not and did not make publicly here 24 years ago. My recent holiday here with my partner happened to coincide with the parliamentary debate on Section 377A, and it is that debate that compels me to write. The debate itself is reason for good cheer: It is a subject – "the love that dare not speak its name," to quote Oscar Wilde – that dared not come up in polite conversation in the Singapore of 1982. The discussion and debate that is now being aired is good for society and good for democracy.

I must take issue, however, with some of the more ardent supporters of maintaining 377A. When I read Prof Thio Li-Ann’s impassioned condemnations I heard chapter and verse of the arguments put forth by the Christian fundamentalist political power brokers in the U.S. They each have their own tired agenda to push as well as attempting to foist their own version of what constitutes "morality" on everyone else. I also believe that Prof Thio owes Singapore’s gay community and the parliament in which she sits an apology for the winking, smarmy double-entendre "humor" she so inappropriately introduced into the debate – hardly the stuff worthy of someone who calls herself an academician. Religious compassion, tolerance and peace? Sorry: "Love the sinner; hate the sin" just doesn’t hack it.

I can weigh in on another matter – nature vs. nurture in sexuality. Andy Ho, in his "Review" column on gays and biology in The Straits Times, asserts that the scientific evidence that homosexuality is inborn is weak, but his essay is filled with phrases like "seems to be" and "suggests that" and I find some of his arguments downright specious to make a point.

I can say unequivocally and with the conviction of knowledge that I am gay not by choice but by genetics, not by nurture but by nature, any more than I chose my blue eyes and brown – now graying – hair. I speak for myself and for the majority of gay people I know. I have been gay from the day I was born and realized it from childhood on. Some may find their orientation later, but it is innate. The body of scientific evidence supporting the inborn nature of sexuality is growing stronger and I believe it will be unquestioningly proven in the months and years ahead. At that point you won’t have to just take my word for it.

I grew up in an era in the U.S. where, until just a couple of decades ago, I had to lead a double life or be subjected to vitriol and intolerance, or even job loss. But being gay is not what defines me as a man – like any ordinary life, it’s just one facet of an aggregate of events and experiences, failures and achievements – the nurture part – that together make up a complicated and caring individual. I am certain that many Straits Times readers would be surprised to realize that some of their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues are quietly, closeted gays. We are usually not distinguishable from your neighbors or your family. I am also proud to be able to say that my partner and I observed 40 years together in September with our families and friends in attendance to help us celebrate.

Prime Minister Lee exhibited the Wisdom of Solomon in his statements that gently and astutely diffused the 377A issue and temporarily put it to rest. I concur with Janadas Devan’s conclusion in his October 27 "Insight" column that the gun aimed at Singaporean gays has been laid down. But I look forward to the day when the bullets are removed from the chamber – and from the rhetoric – and the gun is put away for good. So-called "gay rights" are simply nothing more than human rights. Only when 377A is removed from the penal code will gays in Singapore be fully granted first class citizenship. The same might be said for the U.S. where we have made great strides on these issues, but still have a long road to travel.