We may not speak about them a lot, but the presence of homosexuals in our social-cultural settings is apparently significant enough for the Universiti Brunei Darussalam to study them.
A writer of a Letter to the Editor section of The Brunei Times applauded the UBDs effort, alleging that homosexuals are being discriminated at, just because they chose to be queer.
Identifying himself or herself as Anti-discrimination, the writer concluded: Heterosexual or homosexual, accept and tolerate them for who they are, because nobody deserves to be marginalised for their sexual or gender orientation.
But of course. There are good and evils everywhere, even in Brunei Darussalam which is sitting in the middle of a region caught in a rapid whirlpool of social, economic and political forces.
Homosexuality is but one lifestyle being promoted by certain interest groups, together with a series of ism such as secularism, liberalism and pluralism, to stand up against the values that this Muslim nation holds dear.
One really needs to check again why and when the word gay is used to describe individuals with same-sex orientation because it used to be an ordinary English world denoting light-heartedness. But now, whats gay about people being and declaring to be gay?
Biology
There are garden variety supporters of the so-called gay rights.
Amongst them are the apologetics who say homosexuals cant help being homosexuals, citing some scientific findings of the so-called gay gene.
This is the way God made me was the motto of those who wish to say they are not morally responsible for their behaviour, and that God was instead to be blamed for making them incline towards such a perversion.
But recent history has recorded that gay gene does not exist (or, if one wishes to be politically correct, one might say that history has failed to record its existence).
The Human Genome Project carried out by the International Human Genome Consortium completed in 2003 its study into genetics unable to identify the gay gene.
The gene maps of the human X and Y (sex) chromosomes were constructed, but neither of them contained any gay gene.
Unlike the chromosomal abnormality of a Down syndrome, no biological basis has been found for homosexuality not in the genetic makeups, not in the brain. To those who say God made us homosexuals, one might inquire: If there are people who commit zina with both men and women, does that denote the existence of a bisexual gene?
The debate on the nature versus nurture of homosexuality is tipping more and more towards nurture, especially now that it has been proven that people can and do change their sexual orientation following therapy or other circumstances.
Syariah
The next batch of supporters of gay rights are those offended by religious teachings that clearly prohibit homosexuality. Blaming scholars of the past for narrow interpretation of the teaching, the offended are now saying that the Syariah must be studied more critically and that it must be renewed.
Some of those critical analyses of Al-Quran are conducted by people who dont even speak Arabic, yet say that the people of Luth were not condemned because they practised sodomy but because they hurt the feelings of Prophet Luth alayhissalam by rejecting his two daughters.
Others say, Theres no verse in Al-Quran that clearly prohibits homosexuality.
Well, actually, neither does Al-Quran contain a verse that prohibits marriages between a man and a donkey or an ape or a chicken.
Right
Yet another group of supporters for the gay rights is the defensive who tells the world to mind its own business because it is our rights to be homosexuals. They are saying, because we cant help being dark-skinned/Asian/female/male/Caucasian etc., then homosexuals should not be discriminated against.
Actually, in many countries today, the law protects peoples civil rights regardless of their biological makeups.
It is when the dark-skinned or the white-skinned or the Asian or the Caucasian resort to certain actions such as sodomy that the law then takes actions.
Gay people are discriminated not because of their sexual orientation much less because of the groundless claims of biological basis for that orientation but because they choose to carry out certain actions., i.e., sodomy.
An analogy: if there existed a rape gene, people having it should not be discriminated against just because they have it, but neither would they be allowed to act upon that rape disposition. If they do rape, then of course they would be prosecuted which would not be discrimination at all.
by Vera Salim & Bandar Seri Begawan
Source – The Brunei Times
