Casino and Gay rights
Published March 13th, 2005 in Homosexuality, SocietyAs most of us would know there is current a great debate going on in Singapore about whether or not we should allow a casino to be built here. Now, many of you may wonder what has this to do with gay rights. Unfortunately it does.
The debate on the casino issue have drawn many comments from the public and, especially, strong oppositions from the religious quarters namingly the Catholics/Christians, Muslims and, very mildly, the Buddhists. Most of the comments from the oppositions centers on the arguement that having a casino will be a bad influence to family and society. It even goes as far as to say the gambling is immoral and forbidden in some of the religious teachings and also go against the idea of good family values. Now haven’t we’ve heard this before?
Correct! Similar arguements have been mooted, especially, by the religious groups, against equal rights for a gay person in society.
Now, if the government for whatever reasons decides to scrap the casino because of the arguments given by the oppositions, then a similar fate may well be around when its time to propose for gay equality. Thus it is very pertinent that the government does not give in to religious and morality arguments and go ahead with the casino proposal.
For one thing, its bad news for the future of gay equality in Singapore should such voice ever succeed. What is worst is that it means that our society will be at the whims and fancies of the religious conservatives, thus marginalizing all others and forcing them, whether they like it or not, to adopt and live within the value systems of the religious conservatives.
It is possible for religion and the state to mixed, but NOT religious restrictions. Because your religious restriction does not equal to my religious restriction and you have no right to tell me to live within your religious restriction through law or governance.
The casino is really about this at the end of the day (amongst some other arguements) and so is the debate about gay equality.
8 Responses to “Casino and Gay rights”
- 1 Pingback on Sep 2nd, 2006 at 4:17 am
- 2 Pingback on Nov 22nd, 2006 at 5:23 am
Hi Kelvin
I agree with you totally. This was what I was thinking all along also. To add further, they are going to sacrifice the minority and uphold the majority again.
Well, what makes more money must carry on, with no regards to the other concerns.
The country will suffer from the repercussions of their actions.
We’ll just wait and see.
that’s strange. i didn’t see the link between the casino and gay rights in this manner. i might be wrong but what i am seeing now is that the government is sacrificing gay rights (at least very public ones) to appease religious conservatives to take the heat off the casino issue
while i understand your argument, i can’t say i fully agree with it.
from the fundalmentalist christian point of view, the arguments against gambling does not technically hold water. there is nothing in the bible which actually condemns gambling, and so these people cannot say that it is even a sin. so far, all these arguments (for both the casino and for gay rights) as i gather, revolve around their concept of morality. And morality for each culture and religion is very different…
But back to the issue of the casino, i think all these dumbasses have got totally no clue what the EXISTING situation in Singapore is about in terms of the floating casinos and the casinos in the nearby locations. They have no idea that the current situation of these ‘unregulated’ casinos in these places are giving rise to so much more moral and social repercussions, which the development of a regulated casino in singapore will definitely help. These clueless jokers are really talking with their asses in their fight against the casino.
If they really care about society and moral decay, then what they should be doing, would be to see how they can help gambling addicts, provide counselling and providing an alternative for these people who need that adrenalin rush from gambling. which to date they have DONE NOTHING to help, even with the existing racecourses and legalised Toto etc in Singapore, what moral right have they to say anything when they have not even helped before ???
I’ll just say, go stick it up their A** !
For badnomad
Well I don’t think that they are that coordinated for this issue, really. The Balaji issue is really about health concerns and I (we) believe he is working only from the grounds of health. The Casino is an economic issue which is managed by another set of people…
come back on to LJ lah, how to carry on meaningful commentary when u on wordpress
Now that I have threaded comments plugin. the discussion should be more meaning, no?