The Online Citizen A Community of Singaporeans From Catherine Lim’s website.
I had given my views, mainly as a non-partisan, liberal Singaporean during the recent Aware controversy. Some parents had written or called to voice their concern about one issue that had stood out – the use in schools of an Aware program on sexuality, which allegedly promoted homosexuality. The following letter tries to address this concern.
Dear concerned parents,
There must be many of you out there, less interested in the polemics and theatrics of the recent Aware debacle than in the one issue that suddenly surfaced and grabbed your attention as parents: the issue of homosexuality.
You are clearly not against homosexuals (many of you in fact claim to have homosexuals among your friends) but you are, understandably, against any program in the schools that encourages your sons and daughters to become gays and lesbians. This was exactly the charge brought against the Aware Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) program by the Christian group that had seized control of the organization precisely to fight what they perceived as a great evil. They quoted from the program materials to prove their charge, condemning the insidious call to young people to regard homosexuality and its associated practices (including anal sex—ugh!) as ‘neutral’. As parents of young impressionable teens, you must have been aghast.
I would like to begin by commending this concern of yours which is not only natural and understandable but highly laudable at a time when so many parents are just too busy or too indifferent to play an active role in guiding their children’s behaviour, and simply leave everything to the schools. And I would like to add that if there is a good outcome in the Aware fiasco, it must be your new awareness and readiness to seek corrective action.
Read the full letter here.
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