"All romantics meet the same fate someday. Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe." - Joni Mitchell

***

On Thio Li-Ann:


Cock: Actually, Thio Li Ann made a valid point about the debate over 377a:

....

However, I have noted a disturbing phenomenon over the 377A debate– the argument by insult. Instead of reasoning, some have resorted to name-calling to intimidate and silence their opponents. People with principled moral objections to the homosexual agenda are tarred and feathered 'homophobes', 'bigots', to shut them up. This strategy is unoriginally imported from foreign gay activists, which stifles creative thinking and intellectual enquiry.

When you shout, full of sound and fury, and call your opponents nasty names, this terminates public debate. No one wants to be called a bigot. But think about it – if I oppose incest, am I an incestophobe? If I oppose alcoholism, am I a winophobe? If having an opinion means you are bigoted, then we are all bigots! What is your phobia?

Where certain liberals accuse their opponents of being intolerant, they demonstrate their own intolerance towards their opponents! They are hoist on their own petard, guilty of everything they accuse their detractors of!

One of my colleagues, a young professor, suffered these vicious tactics when the Straits Times published an article this May where Yvonne Lee argued against repealing 377A. This well-researched, cogent article so incensed homosexual activists that they flooded her with a torrent of abusive, lewd emails and wrote to her head of department calling for her to be removed from her job. This appeared to be a co-ordinated campaign.

We academics are used to disagreement, but why write to her employer and threaten her livelihood? Why vilify someone and seek to assassinate their personal and professional reputation? I hope the House joins me in deploring these malicious attacks which also assault academic freedom. She is owed an apology. I would be ashamed to belong to any academic institution that cravenly bowed down to such disgraceful bully-boy tactics.

This August, I had my own experience with this sort of hysterical attack. I received an email from someone I never met, full of vile and obscene invective which I shall not repeat, accusing me of hatemongering. It cursed me and expressed the wish to defile my grave on the day 377A was repealed.

I believe in free debate but this oversteps the line. I was distressed, disgusted, upset enough to file a police report. Does a normal person go up to a stranger to express such irrational hatred?

Smear tactics indicate the poor quality of debate and also, of character. Let us have rational debate, not diatribe, free from abusive rhetoric and tantrum-throwing. As Singapore approaches her Jubilee, My hope for the post-65 generation is that we will not become an uncivil civil society borne from an immature culture of vulgarity which celebrates the base, not the noble.

I speak, at the risk of being burned at the stake by militant activists. But if we don't stand for something, we will fall for anything. I was raised to believe in speaking out for what is right, good and true, no matter the cost. It is important in life not only to have a Brain, but a Spine.

....

Given what we do know about the tone of some commentators on this mailing list....*AHEM*.


A: Can anyone tell me how to access Singapore Hansard? I want a softcopy in print of Thio Li Ann's shameful comments on 377A in Parliament, which I intend to write an article on in the student press.


Cock: Like a lot of good it would do, telling all of Oxford that Thio's a homophobe all over the Oxford Student and Cherwell. What's that supposed to achieve? Make her ex-college embarrassed enough not to give her an honorary degree?


B: The opponents of sexual freedom are just as likely to call gays and/or queer-friendly people "immoral", "unnatural", "sinful" and "diseased", as they are to be called "homophobes" and "bigots". I don't object to phenomenon of such labelling; but I would wish to counter the reasoning and reject the sensibilities that lay behind them, i.e. I would address the substance of what is being said, not the fact that it is said with strong negative overtones.

I found it bizarre at the time that Yvonne Lee could regard being VERBALLY LABELLED a "homophobe" and a "bigot" as "chilling" of her free speech, while apparently thinking that THREATENING STATE VIOLENCE (in the form of a criminal statute) against gay sex is not intimidating, so long as there are all kinds of unreliable (because wholly non-binding) assurances re non-prosecution. Thio's analogous position is similarly bafflingly small-minded.

No, there isn't much instrumental value in directing swearfestes at bigots. But that's a separate question from calling them "homophobes", which they are, and "bigots", which they are. And even where profanities are concerned, notice that these are people in privileged positions trying to take the language of anger away from people who are disenfranchised. That is, unfortunately, a common theme of conversations about "civility". The fact is when people have the power to crap all over your life, swearing back at them is small change. All it would take for her to stop being "vilified" by WORDS would be for her to stop supporting HURTING other people through ACTION. Fair's fair?


Me: Actually I agree with the extract from Thio's speech, except for the "homophobe" and "bigot" thing.

Would she be against the terms "racist" and "bigot" if they were used to describe those we consider racist and bigoted?

As for the threats of state violence, I observe again that from 1988 to 2003 (and AFAIK and most probably from 2003 till today), consenting, homosexual sex between adults has not been punished.

I might point out that this year is the 20th anniversary of Operation Spectrum (aka the "'Marxist' 'Conspiracy'"). Today, Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2 - formerly The Working Committee 2) does pretty much the same thing that 20 years ago got many social workers and professionals detained, and that anyone claiming that there is a THREAT OF STATE VIOLENCE (in the form of a criminal statute) against civil society work will be dismissed as paranoid and hysterical.


A: Jiekai, you have once again demonstrated your stupidity. If you had bothered to read the shit posted on keep377A.com you will note that large amounts of it qualify as hate speech. Saying 'fuck' and 'shit' may be profane, but it isn't hateful. Saying 'they are a disease and they should not go near my children' is hate speech.

AND YVONNE LEE's article was NOT WELL RESEACHED. It was a piece of moralistic AND ignorant propaganda.

It's LAUGHABLE that Thio compares her experience to being 'burned at the stake' just because people have pointed out that she is a homophobe, a bigot, and an ignorant and moralistic bitch.

I have the profoundest respect for those, Alibgensians, Lollards, Catholics, Protestants, etc, who endured the flames in centuries past for their beliefs. To compare herself to their brave example would be ragingly funny, were it not so ludicrous.

Anyway, allow me to share with you one of my favourite passages from Mill's 'On Liberty', which I think is most apropos here:

====

'Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where hte supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.'

Damn right.


Me: Perhaps this is true for the circles you move in, but I know many people who are able to disagree civilly.


Cock: I think that calling her a bitch is extremely unfair. I am very sure she is acting in good faith ( pun fully intended). It isn't her fault that she should have been brainwashed by her religion to believe that homosexuals are sub-human. Most people are born with a tendency to do that.

Derogatory terms are best reserved for people who do know better but sit on the fence and aren't willing to stand for anything. Like the whole bunch of vote-retaining politicians in parliament who just want to avoid the issue because they know their own popularity has been shaken by their forcing through unpopular CPF changes.


C: I usually do not post on this forum and am quite happy to just read the comments of others. however, since this touches on Thio Li-Ann, who incidentally, was my public law tutor last academic year, I think a few fair comments are in order. I assure you that Thio's comments in Parliament do not stem from a personal prejudice against homosexuality. She is essentially trying to make 2 points. First, that any call for repeal of S377A must be premised upon sound legal reasoning which she feels the abolitionist camp lacks. *snip* Thio's comments are made from, I believe, a purely objective assessment of the situation as it stands in Singapore today. She is in no way a gay bashing homophobe as some would like to believe. That being said, I am not however, saying that I agree with her arguments or POV. I'm merely trying to dispel the fact that she is a "disgrace to her profession". If anything, I have always had great respect for the intellectual rigour that Thio encourages and imposes on her classes.

Thio's intentions are probably masked by the strong language that she uses. But then, again, that's very characteristic of her, both in the way she writes and speaks. In any case, for a commentary with less fire and that most would find more palatable, read Hri Kumar's comments on the same topic.


D: i would just like to attest to C's observation about Prof Thio Li-Ann, because I was in her class too. she's an extraordinary teacher who constantly reminded her students, amongst other things, that we should value freedom of speech and exercise it responsibly. she is currently sitting in Parliament as an NMP and i believe she has the right to share her views on why s 377a should be retained, much as how Siew Kum Hong has the right to speak for repealing s 377a. it's extremely unfair to say that she's a disgrace to her profession by virtue of the views she has.

i must also add that i have not been "brain-washed" by Prof Thio in any way - in fact i support the repeal, but at the same time i believe we should agree to disagree and she's entitled to her views.

on another note, there has been too much name-calling by both camps in this debate, and it certainly does not develop the arguments by using terms such as "bigot" and "faggot". we might all be missing the real point of the argument in the midst of this name-calling exercise.


E: Eye for an eye what.

Since the establishment regularly loves to fire activists lose their job (e.g. teaching), it's only the activists' right to retaliate and make them lose their job

After all, do labels really threaten freedom of speech? What hypocrisy especially given the labelling tactics the establishment has been using?

>I think that calling her a bitch is extremely unfair.

I am sure losing your job on the basis of your sexuality is pretty fair too, hein?


Me: KILL THE BASTARDS!!!

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!


"To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty." - Maximilien Robespierre


A: [Thio] has degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge. Just because she is able to put an intellectual gloss on her homophobia, doesn't mean she isn't homophobic.

Thio Li Ann is a bitch because she uses her position and her credentials to suggest that [the criminalisation of homosexuality is] a matter of controversy and debate, whereas it is only so IN HER MIND. The rest of the thinking world, praise be to God, has moved on.

> I'm merely trying to dispel the fact that she is a "disgrace to her profession". If
> anything, I have always had great respect for the intellectual rigour that Thio
> encourages and imposes on her classes.

I renew my accusation that she is a disgrace to her profession. She is intellectually dishonest: as I said, she implies that there is a debate about this issue, when in fact there isn't one. She is no better than David Irving or historians who argue that the holocaust did not happen. There is no debate on that issue, just as there is no debate on this one.

If you don't believe this, I challenge you to find even ONE article, written by a law professor in an OECD country, in which the criminalisation of homosexuality is defended.

(I agree that Scalia seems to have defended a similar position in his dissent to Lawrence v. Texas, but in fact his dissent was based on an originalist reading of state's rights. Scalia may or may not have been right to argue that there is no constitutional right to sodomy in the US constitution, but that is completely separate from the *legislative* question of whether such a law should exist in the first place.)


B: What does her "entitlement" to her views entail? Surely not immunity from criticism if they are wrongheaded and harmful. Surely not silence as to how disingenuous her arguments are. Of course she has the "right" to her views: nobody is suggesting for an instant that she be forced to shut up or coerced to change her mind. But that doesn't stop them from being disgraceful.


Me: So do you support the letter-writing campaign to make her lose her job?

If so, is that not forcing her to shut up or coercing her to change her mind?

If not, good for you!


B: Depends on the grounds for the call. If the letter writers bona fide believe and the university administrators are bona fide persuaded that she is unfit for the job (i.e. actually unable to do what the job is required to do, which may or may not include reflecting a particular ethos and creating a particular environment in the institution), that seems OK to me. I have to say Yvonne Lee's legal abilities at least in that one article don't seem too hot.


F: Isn't there something like tenure in NUS, which would protect professors from getting sacked over such things?

I would absolutely not join a campaign to sack a professor on the basis of his/her opinions, because I don't think a university should attempt to reflect an ethos of any sort apart from the ethos of free intellectual inquiry. So unless Thio Li Ann is suggesting that we erase all pro-homosexual writings from the face of the earth or something like that, I don't think the university should sack her. Of course, it is not *morally wrong* for university administrators to want their institution to reflect a certain ethos, but I certainly think it is *inadvisable* to have such policies if one has any intention of making a university great.


A: But that is my point: do you honestly believe that someone who argued strongly in favour of gay rights -- gay marriage, gay adoption, the whole shebang -- would find a class by Thio Li Ann to be a haven of free intellectual inquiry?

Are you kidding me?


Me: Would someone who argued strong against gay rights find a class by a pro-gay Professor to be a haven of free intellectual inquiry?


F: A class, any class, is not a 'haven of free intellectual inquiry'. Classes are not meant to be such things. Every instructor has an idea of what they want their students to learn and will attempt to 'influence' their students' thoughts to that extent. The point of having tenure is to ensure that there is freedom of intellectual inquiry for university *scholars* (and I mean that in the general, non-Singaporean sense of 'scholar'), so that they are not pressured to take up intellectual positions for non-intellectual reasons. Students, I'm afraid, are irrelevant to the concept of tenure, which is meant to protect intellectual exploration and not teaching standards or whatever. I don't see how it matters whether someone in favour of gay rights finds Thio's class worthwhile, and in any case a couple of law students have spoken up here for the quality of her teaching in topics other than homosexuality. It is a necessary cost of having freedom of inquiry that some people will exploit it to promote an utterly wrong worldview. Once you start legislating which worldviews your researchers are supposed to hold, you lose sight of the whole point of research, which involves questioning those worldviews themselves. Whether those worldviews are justified is an issue to be settled by such questioning and not by university administrators, except for the worldview that intellectual inquiry should be suppressed, since *that* would be contrary to the purpose of the university.

Essentially, I'm saying that we should never, ever sack professors on the basis of their opinions (assuming their scholarly work meets the standards required to attain tenure, and I assume Thio's work on constitutional law did), no matter how repugnant they are, for the simple reason that university administrators and 'the public' cannot be trusted to take the 'correct' ideological stances (other than that of freedom of intellectual inquiry). Furthermore, any such action, no matter how apparently justifiable for a particular case, would deter people with radical ideas from speaking out in fear that they would face similar consequences. And the suppression of radical ideas is simply counter to the nature of intellectual inquiry itself. Radical ideas should be tested in the intellectual battlefield, not in the political battlefield.

I am not saying that I think it possible that Thio's radical stance is actually correct. Instead, I am saying that the rule that intellectual inquiry must be kept sacrosanct, otherwise it will be abused too easily, if not now, then in the future when perhaps less 'wise' university administrators see fit to discriminate against people they find repugnant. If putting up with Holocaust deniers and homophobes is a consequence of this protection, well I consider it a small price to pay for keeping a rule that ensures freedom of intellectual inquiry.


E: But why should we spare her when they have not spared us?


Me: "This great purity of the French revolution's basis, the very sublimity of its objective, is precisely what causes both our strength and our weakness. Our strength, because it gives to us truth's ascendancy over imposture, and the rights of the public interest over private interests; our weakness, because it rallies all vicious men against us, all those who in their hearts contemplated despoiling the people and all those who intend to let it be despoiled with impunity, both those who have rejected freedom as a personal calamity and those who have embraced the revolution as a career and the Republic as prey. Hence the defection of so many ambitious or greedy men who since the point of departure have abandoned us along the way because they did not begin the journey with the same destination in view. The two opposing spirits that have been represented in a struggle to rule nature might be said to be fighting in this great period of human history to fix irrevocably the world's destinies, and France is the scene of this fearful combat. Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny's friends conspire; they will conspire until hope is wrested from crime. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.

If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs.

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?

. . .

. . . Indulgence for the royalists, cry certain men, mercy for the villains! No! mercy for the innocent, mercy for the weak, mercy for the unfortunate, mercy for humanity.

Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people's mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonor the people's cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?"

- Maximilien Robespierre: On the Moral and Political Principles of Domestic Policy