Something came into my thoughts and I decided to put it down in writing. I'll share more of my thoughts at the bottom of this post. Do share yours with mine.
***********************
You're in love
So is the man who loves you
You're so in love that you want to make a vow,
To live together in the legal estate of matrimony,
To love him, comfort him, honour and keep him in sickness and in health
and forsaking all others, be faithful to him, so long as you both shall live.
So does he
You're so in love that you want to declare your love to everyone and anyone
and receive the blessings from those who love you
So does he
You're so in love that you'll devote your heart, mind and body to him
So does he
You're so in love that you want to raise children with him
To see them grow and realise their own potential
and to be valuable members of society
So does he
But you can't,
you can't live together in the legal estate of matrimony
you can't declare your love to everyone
you won't receive the blessings
you can't devote your body to him
you can't raise children with him, not even if all you're asking for is adopted children
not only that,
you can't apply for subsidized government housing
or place his name under the beneficiary of your life insurance
Neither can he
Because you are a man
******************************
I wonder how many of you were thinking about the gender of "You". Gender aside, what if the last statement has been changed to
"Because you are of a different race / religion /social class"
What will your thoughts be then?
I realised, after I went through these thoughts, that there are so many things that we, heterosexuals, happily married people, take for granted.
We happily walk into that tiny building in Fort Canning Hill to register our marriage. Declare our marriage vows to our friends and family. We even hold lavish banquet and receive loads of well wishes.
We're granted subsidized public housing, we can put our spouse name as beneficiary in case the unfortunate happens to us. We can adopt children even if we can't have any.
We hug and kiss our partner publicly when we happy, we do the same when we're sad. We can do all these because we love and are capable of loving. Why can't they?
Harold Evans' Asian Connection
-
The legendary British newspaper editor, who died this week, had a
significant effect on journalism in Asia—and vice versa HARRY EVANS, an
assistant editor ...
3 years ago
2 comments:
Ape is matured beyond his age...
We're living in an age where people are less tolerant. Back in imperial china, there were records of gay emperors too. Likewise in the japanese samurai classic literature, there were accounts of kept accounts of gay r/s between master and prodigy.
In south asia and parts of indo china, it is not wrong for pple of the same sex to hold hands in public.
Nowadays however, whether due to bigotry or personal insecurities, everything gets labelled gay this and dat... Just go onto Youtube. Once you get guys prancing about or wrestling... tis a matter of time before someone starts posting a statement like "That's so gay..."
Thing is... So what if it is? How has dat hurt a 3rd party? How does da love between 2 private individual affect others such that bigots must impose their values on these individuals? Hmmm...
Hi gecko,
Dun make ape sound so old leh :p
Ape agree tat ppl hv become less tolerant. Perhaps it is the incessant drive to be "successful" that makes us so. Anyway, tat's another issue to talk about.
However, ape don't feel that people label gay-this-gay-that.
Anyway, let's hope sgp will come to be more open, eventually... as of now... there's still a lot of ignorant s'poreans around.
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