Our Government has Done It Again !

Oh yes, I am again amazed at how coherent our policy makers are. Only recently in Parliment, did Dr. Balaji Sadasivan mentioned that there is a big spike in HIV & AIDS cases among gay men in Singapore.

And on Sunday, 20th March 2005, Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts & Health Dr. Balaji Sadasivan called "for champions in the gay community to step forward and stand up for zero tolerance of unsafe sex practices".

To his credit, his crusade against HIV/AIDS is targetted at both heterosexuals and homosexuals.

Thus, when a Christian support group, Safehaven, is negotiating with the Media Development Authority (MDA) to hold a concert to promote safe sex among Singapore's gay and lesbian community, I thought it would be approved. At least, it would be inline with what Dr. Balaji said.

However, MDA announced that they rejected the application for the concert with the reason that "Alternative lifestyles are against the public interest."

That is because the 2 main actors, Jason and Demarco, are gay. Also, "Based on the reports about the duo's performances in the United States and the duo's website, the duo uses their musical performance and their own example of being a couple to celebrate and promote a gay lifestyle."

So how do you teach gay men to practise safe sex, when you do not want to talk about gay sex ? And how is that going to promote a gay lifestyle ? All heterosexual men suddenly would want to practise safe gay sex ?

Imagine someone were to propose this public seminar on how to reduce terrorist in Singapore, which includes a performance showing how a terrorist go about planning and putting a bomb in Singapore and what are the ways to twart this terrorist. Would MDA reject it because that would be promoting a terrorism lifestyle ?

Think Frontline. Or maybe it was because the terrorist died in the end. So that is acceptable. So how about getting the concert changed such that the gay characters die of AIDS after having gay sex. Would that be OK then ? Would that be in our public interest ?

How about this project that touches on lives of criminals, showing how they led their criminal lives and persuading the society to accept them and give them a second chance after being released from prison ? Wouldn't all Singaporeans then turn itno criminals, thinking that "It's ok, just spend a while in jail and things would be fine." Wouldn't that be against the public interest ?

I think you, gentle readers, can draw your own conclusions.

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March 23rd 2005, TODAY :


THE Media Development Authority (MDA) has denied reports that it is considering giving a proposed gay concert the green light.

In an email to Today, MDA spokeswoman Koh June May said: "We are not in the midst of holding any negotiations or discussions with the group on this issue."

Yesterday, this newspaper reported that Christian group Safehaven was negotiating with MDA to hold a charity concert by gay pop duo Jason and deMarco next month.

The group, which claims to be the only gay affirmative Christian support group here, applied for an Arts and Entertainment Licence about two weeks ago, but their application was rejected last Friday in a brief faxed letter.

"Alternative lifestyles are against the public interest," said the MDA in the letter.

"Based on the reports about the duo's performances in the United States and the duo's website, the duo uses their musical performance and their own example of being a couple to celebrate and promote a gay lifestyle," it said.

When asked why Safehaven had not been forthright about the rejection when contacted on Monday night, spokeswoman Susan Tang said: "We did not want to say it was rejected as we wanted to give MDA a chance to reconsider our application.

According to her, half the tickets have been sold. But the organisers are not giving up without a fight.

Yesterday, in an appeal letter to Dr Lee Boon Yang, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Safehaven enclosed footage of the duo's performance, saying their act was "strictly professional". — Ansley Ng

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