PLU Press Release
January 20th, 2006 | Published in glbt | 10 Comments
Update: Ex-Gay Watch has posted about this.
Note: This is here because the story which was going to appear in today’s newspaper was stopped “by a ministry” minutes before it went out. I’m — We’re — not just going to let it slide. (I really should mention that this entire bit before the start of the press release are my words, and that you should just copy and paste the following, not the entire chunk.)
Media Release
From People Like Us
19 Jan 2006, 20.30h
Singapore govt gives $100,000 to Christian anti-gay group
By giving $100,000 to Liberty League, as reported by ChannelNewsAsia (CNA), the Singapore government is helping to promote a religious cause founded on unscientific and psychologically damaging methods.
Liberty League intends to “promote gender and sexual health” through “conduct[ing] sexuality talks in schools” - CNA report.
However, Liberty League’s website promotes a book ‘Freedom of Choice’. The book’s subjects were almost totally from the Christian group, Choices, which runs programmes teaching that homosexuality is a psychological dysfunction. The book thus promotes this kind of pseudo-therapy propagated by fundamentalist Christian groups.
Mr Leslie Lung, the founder of Liberty League has long been known to be associated with “ex-gay” ministries. The “ex-gay” or “reparative therapy” movement is strongly associated with the more extreme churches in the United States. Liberty League’s website itself uses terms such as “sexual brokenness”, “addiction and abuse”.
In a seminar organised by the Graduates Christian Fellowship on 13 October 2005, which described homosexuality as a psychological problem, Liberty League was touted as resource for counseling. It was recommended by Mr Tan Thuan Seng, the President of Focus on the Family, Singapore (FOTF-Sg) who is known to regularly give anti-gay talks in Christian circles.
FOTF-Sg is an affiliate of Christian- and US-based Focus on the Family
Liberty League is also lauded on the website of Exodus Singapore, the Christian ex-gay group, http://www.exodusasiapacific.org/singapore.htm. It too speaks of “sexual brokenness” and teaches “God’s plan for sexuality”. On its Policy page, it says, “Exodus Asia Pacific cites homosexual tendencies as one of many disorders that beset fallen humanity. Christ offers a healing alternative to those with sexual and relational problems.”
An 18-year-old student who had attended one of Mr Lung’s earlier talks in her school wrote in her report (deposited with People Like Us) that she had to “sit through a one-hour treatise on why homosexuality was wrong, and if we had any same-sex attractions, we should immediately seek help and ‘turn straight’.
“He made several references to God and the Bible during the talk,” she wrote, and that “it was pretty insensitive to everyone non-Christian.”
It should be noted that in his statement to CNA, Mr Lung spoke of “coming out of [homosexuality]“. At first glance, this phrase appears similar to “coming out” - the well-accepted process of healthy psychological development for gay and lesbian persons - but it is in fact a trojan horse for the opposite: destructive self-denial of a person’s own sexuality.
PLU finds it reprehensible that while the World Health Organization1 and reputable psychological associations2 no longer treat homosexuality as a disorder, the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) would still fund an organization that has been founded on this unscientific and damaging premise. (More information on this in Annex.)
The government needs to explain why the NVPC thinks $100,000 is money well spent when given to a disguised religious cause based on unscientific psychotherapeutic approaches that seek to deform young people’s sense of self-worth and psychological health.
PLU also notes that the published guidelines for eligibility for funding from the NVPC include the stipulation that all programmes must be secular, and believes the government needs to explain its grant to Liberty League when even 18 year-old students can so clearly spot its religious agenda.
The government also needs to explain how this grant is consistent with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s claim that the government is not homophobic, made in a comment to the Foreign Correspondents Association on 6 October 2005.
For more information, please contact:
People Like Us
ANNEX
The matter becomes more ludicrous when one realizes that even other Asian nations like Japan3, the People’s Republic of China4 and Thailand5 no longer consider homosexuality a mental disorder.
In relation to therapies to correct homosexual orientation, the American Psychiatric Association, reaffirmed its stand in 2000, that attempts to “repair homosexuality are based on developmental theories whose scientific validity is questionable.”6 A study by Shidlo and Schroeder of 202 individuals who attempted sexual orientation therapy found less than 4 percent were able to rid themselves of same-sex attractions while 78 percent of respondents
experienced long-term psychological distress as a result of the attempt.7
REFERENCES
1 The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in its International Classification of Disorders-10 in 1992.
(http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html)
2 American Psychological Association:
http://www.psych.org/pnews/99-01-15/therapy.html
British Psychological Society:
http://www.bps.org.uk/lesgay/lesgay_home.cfm
Australian Psychological Society:
http://www.psychology.org.au/units/interest_groups/gay_lesbian/news.asp
Canadian Psychological Association:
http://www.cpa.ca/documents/policy.html
3 http://www.iglhrc.org/site/iglhrc/section.php?id=5&detail=313
4 Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses on April 20, 2001 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_China
5 http://www.studentbmj.com/issues/03/02/news/7.php
http://www.thinkcentre.org/article.cfm?ArticleID=1933
6 American Psychiatric Association’s Position Statement on Therapies Focused on Attempts to Change Sexual Orientation (Reparative or Conversion Therapies)
http://www.psych.org/psych_pract/copptherapyaddendum83100.cfm
7 Shidlo, A., and Schroeder, M., (2002) Changing Sexual
Orientation: A Consumers’ Report. Professional Psychology: Research
and Practice, 33(3), 249. Refer also:
Schroeder, M., (2001) Ethical Issues in Sexual Orientation
Conversion Therapies: An Empirical Study of Consumers. Journal of
Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy 5(3/4), 131.
Bright, C., (2004) Deconstructing Reparative Therapy: An Examination
of the Processes Involved When Attempting to Change Sexual
Orientation. Clinical Social Work Journal, 32(4), p. 471.
January 20th, 2006 at 3:58 pm (#)
Those who have been made to undergo “treatment”, or have been in any way exposed to the scientifically misleading and deceptive information provided by Liberty League and its associates should consider suing for damages. A class-action should be taken against Liberty League and its assosciates, the relavant Ministers of Government (including Education), and the Head of Government. The action should seek compensation for, psychological damage caused by intense discrimination and humiliation, psychological damage caused by negligence in the practice of psychological therapy, and unconscionable use of a position of influence.
The author of this comment does not have formal legal training, this comment should NOT be taken as legal advise in any shape or form.
January 20th, 2006 at 5:29 pm (#)
It’s a shame!!! :( What can be done, though? I’d like to know….
January 20th, 2006 at 7:39 pm (#)
[...] Note: This is here because the story which was going to appear in today’s newspaper was stopped “by a ministry” minutes before it went out. If it is of any importance to you, perhaps you might like to consider re-posting it on your own website, or posting a link to my post or to Adri’s, which is where I got this from. [...]
January 20th, 2006 at 8:04 pm (#)
I just read your piece and am appalled at the attitude of some so-called Christian groups.
Cards on the table - I’m a Christian. I’m straight and a male. Christianity, for me, is a religion of love and tolerance. For Christians, the path to heaven is not made through our actions, it’s through belief in Jesus as our saviour.
Entry into heaven isn’t through our actions. If you are in any doubt, remeber who the first person to follow Jesus into Heaven was. It was the repentant thief that was crucified alongside Him.
“Acting” straight will no more get you into heaven than going to church. Entry into heaven is through God’s grace and not our actions.
January 20th, 2006 at 10:52 pm (#)
i was just surfing around and forgot how i come about this site. Your entry on Mac stuff is really useful, I use Mac too and for “social” purposes, mac really suck. When I use PC a while ago, Im so surprised at how their MSN is so far beyond the MSN the mac can use.
Tell me more about cool Mac stuff, please!
January 20th, 2006 at 11:02 pm (#)
You should just write to the relevant ministry direct.
January 21st, 2006 at 12:15 am (#)
There currently are people who have gone to the relevant ministry direct. Obviously news is not good. I can’t reveal much here, though.
Irene: Erm, advanced MSN on PC? When every new release=more emoticons? Try http://www.adiumx.com. If you’ve got enough friends on macs, iChat + iSight is unbeatable.
January 21st, 2006 at 1:35 am (#)
This look like 1 article that will never see the light. I must say the PLU put up a very good arguement. The arguement is so good that I don’t think Liberty League or any ministries can rebutt it and defend their reason for that $100,000 funding.
Thanks for sharing.
January 21st, 2006 at 4:44 am (#)
Perhaps the government knows, and is eager to stem the growing number of young gays and lesbians in the community, who might also be viewed as a growing threat to core asian values. With the rampant increase in HIV cases (of course attributed to the homosexual community) and massive popularity of fridae.com and the Nation parties, there is an increasingly urgent need to control or steer the next generation down the straight and narrow path.
To grant a cool $100, 000 for GLBT problems is serious business and i would assume, a problem of considerable concern for NVPC that it would max out its funding cap.
January 21st, 2006 at 3:40 pm (#)
Talk to your MP. Budget06 will be released soon - time to question the spending habits of MCYS. Make parliamentary democracy work for you.. and yeah, elections a-coming!