Fruitless effort

re: "Singapore signals male-sex ban review won’t allow gay marriage" (BP, August 1, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Singapore is to be commended for taking steps to reform inherited law criminalizing gay sex. Such unjust law reflects the bad social conventions of less developed societies, in this case that of colonial Britain. Singapore is wrong, however, to give such excessive weight to the religiously inspired prejudices of Catholic political players and other intolerant groups in society. In this, Thailand has set the good example, although the example of Taiwan and other nations that have granted full equality to same-sex marriage is even better.

In insisting that “The fruitfulness of marriage also necessitates that marriage must be open to procreation,” the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore betrays its intellectual and moral poverty. And also raises questions about its commitment to honesty.

If the Catholic church's claim is to be taken seriously, they would ban any marriage where either partner is sterile, which must render such a union not "open to procreation" as required by church dogma. Worse, the Catholic dictate would mean that as soon as a married women reached menopause, after which the marriage must, short of a miracle like Mary's virgin birth, no longer be "open to procreation," the marriage would no longer meet the necessary condition so must be dissolved. This is nonsense.

The only definition of marriage that stands up to even cursory analysis of this ancient custom of humankind is that it is a legal contract entered into by two people who wish to make a public, official commitment before their society that they are a couple in the marriage so defined. Whether they marry for love or not, to produce children or not, to secure assets or not, to enjoy each others company or not, to gain tax breaks or not, or for any other reason, is irrelevant except to the couple entering that public, legal engagement. The Catholic church and like objectors heeding the dubious claims of their ancient texts are being dishonest when they pretend otherwise.

These religiously inspired objections to a reasonable understanding of marriage illustrate yet again that ancient texts are a reliable guide to the social norms of the patriarchal societies that made them up, and to absolutely nothing more. It is unreasonable to expect society today to reject the progress of more than two millennia merely to appease those who claim that the prejudices of old men thousands of years ago have some divine sanction. That is to demand unreason and regressive morals of high order. 

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on August 13, 2022, under the title "Fruitless effort" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2367713/closer-inspection