Acknowledging hate is fine but don't suppress

As I was waking up from my drunken stupor from last night, Oh My Goat brought the newspapers in to share with the rest of the barn mates today's helping of hatefulness, as brought to you by a certain Bernard Tan.

I reproduce in full:

ST Forum
Dec 3, 2009
ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES
Respect is fine but don't glorify

I REFER to Tuesday's letter by Mr Harvey Neo, 'Respect those outside traditional family'.

I agree with his view that people with alternative views and lifestyles should be treated with respect, empathy, compassion and tolerance. However, I also share the concerns of the Anglican Church of Singapore regarding the increasing trend to glorify lifestyles alternative to the traditional family. I am not an Anglican but the church's concerns resonate with me - and I believe they resonate with the silent majority of Singapore.

In my workplace, I work with and I have hired gays and single parents, and I am entirely blind to their lifestyle choices. I have good friends who are gay. To me, their lifestyle is a personal choice and has no bearing whatsoever on their character and the work that they do.

However, I draw the line if I am expected to somehow 'celebrate' and support their lifestyle. I draw the line if I am regarded as a bigot or a lesser human being if I do not approve of the alternative lifestyle.

While a single parent can justifiably be proud to have brought up her child despite her single parenthood, I do not think single parenthood in itself is anything to be proud of or celebrated. In the same vein, gays are entitled to their views and lifestyle, and they should not be subjected to any pressure to conform or, worse, somehow convert to be 'normal' heterosexuals. But in my view, they are not entitled to expect non-gays to celebrate and approve of their lifestyle.

I think the line is crossed when respect, empathy, compassion and tolerance are not regarded as sufficient any more; and the silent majority are expected to actively endorse and approve alternative lifestyles. The silent majority are entitled to their views and should not be vilified for supporting traditional family values.

Bernard Tan

Reasonable homo sapiens and livestock will probably miss the finer points of Mr Tan's swiney piece of writing, as the poetry of unfeminist pigheadedness is famously elusive to decode. Thankfully, gentle readers, this badly drawn, male unfeminist pig is here to put an authoritative interpretation for your erudition.

To wit:

Acknowledging hate is fine but don't suppress

I agree with Mr Harvey Neo that the single mothers, gay people and other minority types suffer discrimination, and in fact I have all the "respect, compassion and tolerance" towards browbeating them. But like the Archbishop, I think we must publicly glorify our hate for struggling minorities. By "we", I extend my hating rights to fellow tribesmen beyond the cloister walls of the church, to every other comfortable, privileged, mainstream inhabitant of our society who have so much political, social and media representation that we are constantly spoken for without any active inputs.

I have gays and single parents at my work place because I don't want to come across as a real jerk. I even have friends who are gays because they don't know how much of jerk I really am. To me, it would be better if they weren't around at all, but it's really hard to find good help thesedays and they've somehow proven themselves to be much more useful than I'd like to admit.

However, I draw the line at extending any of the rights, protection and aid--afforded to my fellow mainstream counterparts--to gays and single parents. I also draw the line at admitting that I'm a great, big, gigantic, smelly asshole AND a lesser human being as I do not feel the slightest remorse for my behaving badly.

While a single parent can justifiably be deluded into feeling proud for coping despite our pedestrian and institutional hate, I think single parenthood in itself should be outrightly denounced. In the same vein, gays are entitled to fall in love, and they should not be subjected to any pressure to undergo conversion programmes, only because they don't actually work since there's nothing inherently wrong with being gay. But in my view, it's a real pity that we, the privileged masses have to put up with all these people being around at all.

I think the line is crossed when my right to hate them openly is being curbed, and that we are expected to actively stop being complete shitheads. We are entitled to our hate, and should not be frowned upon for exercising our mythical traditional family value of hating people different from us.

Jerkface Much