As a digression, I was reading the Zaobao article by 黄浩威 quoted by yawningbread recently, and I made quite an interesting discovery about Thio. Her Chinese name is 张黎衍. 黎 was defined by Times New Chinese Dictionary (1994) as 1. a surname 2. 黑darkness or blackness. 衍 is defined as 1. 伸展extending or 延长prolonging 2. 多余excess or 多出superfluous.

I am just reporting it as I read.

I guess I put 2 statements on the same paragraph, but I really meant them to be separate.

The first statement about group thinking and the larger proportion of Abrahamic religion was a reply to the thumping of the chairs. I agree with you that not all from the religious streak may think alike and can have different opinions in the Parliament and from recent conversations, there is also a possibility that the “thumping” was actually part of the party whip. So my initial assertion may well be incorrect.

The second statement about PAP’s fault, I meant to talk about the ability of PAP to turn and flex, because they hired people that think like them, not that they hire more people from the Abrahamic religion. Sorry for the confusion.

And on your point about Buddha and homosexuality. The monastic codes actually list a lot of issues that surfaced during Buddha’s time and these includes monks/nuns who had intimate relations with each other. We must not forget that during his time, monks/nuns vow to be celibate, so any sexual encounter is forbidden. However, if you look at the major rules, it simply states that any monk or nun who have a sexual relation with penetration are liable of disrobing. Gay sex was not singled out from the rules. For this first part, we can see that Buddha (and the society during his times) knew about men having sex with each other (as evidence in the monastic code), but he treated it as the same offense as those having hetero-sex. And in the minor rules, men have close (intimate) relations with each other (no amounting to sex, I guess) were forbidden, but if a monk had close relation with a nun, it was a worst offense.

I have read a story in the scriptures about a young man who was so fascinated by the Buddha, that he became a monk to follow Buddha around daily. He noticed that and prompted taught him how to disregarded bodily attached. He did not condemn the person for his fascinated. In fact, how he handled that young man would be exactly how he would have handle a girl who is equally fascinated by the Buddha.

When the 5 precept for lay people was spoken, gay sex was never mentioned specifically as breaking the precept. Because if it were THAT important and its rather common in India, it would have been one of the precept. Instead, the 3rd precept only talked about sexual misconduct which includes adultery, rape and non-consensual sex. How could we conclude that? Because all “rules” in Buddhism always comes with a reasoning or situation behind it, its never just a rule and no questions asked. In applying the 3rd precept of sexual misconduct, the lay persons were asked if they were happy if someone has relationship with their spouse, or if someone rapes their daughters. If no, then one should also not do the same. This is the spirit of no harm.

It was only later commentators of the Buddhist scriptures that expanding on the term of sexual misconduct to include all other activities not leading to procreation or proper social behaviors at that time, which includes masturbation, not having sexual organs contact with other orifices, not have sex in the afternoon, etc. If we look at these set of explanation as a whole, we can see that its very cultural based and have not relevance to the act teachings. Even that, does not say its against gay sex, because the part about the orifice applies to everyone. What is interesting is that it is not a sexual misconduct to engage and have sex in a prostitute if it were paid by a 3rd party. How lucky for the men!

As for that posting on what Buddha said, it was not to rebuked the author’s take on gay sex, but rather that logic that the author used to arrive at the conclusion. Anyway, some people just love to dig their own graves, I’ll let them bury themselves afterwards.

More to the point, I would like to bring your attention to Detenber’s work on self-censorship. It is on people stop speaking up if they think the views they hold is the minority view. If the study paints an accurate picture, it might be an important for you to consider if certain actions you may plan may hurt your cause. If you think it relevant drop me an email zhaoqin_@hotmail.com

As an unrelated point on your earlier post, is it true that the Buddha did not single out homosexuals for commiting immoral actions? Would any text shed light on it? Could you give more positive evidence for Buddhist tolerance for gays rather than the lack of special mention of this group? I appreciate that it is laudable if Buddhists are culturally more accepting of diversity, but for the misguided person that you posted about, scriptual support might be more important to change his mind.

yeah, I agree with you. This is the problem with group think and perhaps reflects on the rather large proportion of Abrahamic religion fellowers. Its PAPs own fault for hiring people who thinks and acts too much like each other, making it difficult for themselves to think critically about issues.

Thanks for the correction.

From what we have heard, there was neither resistance nor query from ST editors. This is something the Janadas wanted to write about (I know due to my sources). So I don’t think paps hands are in it.

My dear, it should be “than” and “reveal”…

But I digress..

Yes, I thought it was brilliant. It was pointed out to me by a str8 christian friend. I initially skipped the article, thinking it is one of ‘those’…

Then my friend pointed it out and said it was different compared to his stance previously (where most of his articles where more in-line with what govt says)…

So, either :

(a) Janadas is so passionate about this that he pushed through the editors, or

(b) this IS inline with what the govt wants, just that many MPs object to it.. and govt has to do it slowly ?