Today's Report

Posted by: GayGuy

When I saw this report on Today, a local media publication, I got mixed feelings:

This article is dated:
Friday, 26 August 2005

Why gay factor can't be ignored

by Vinita Ramani
vinita@newstoday.com.sg

IT'S about addressing the root of the problem, not gay advocacy.

And the problem, according to Senior Minister of State for Health, Dr Balaji Sadasivan, is that 93 per cent of the record 311 HIV cases diagnosed last year came from just two groups - the gay community and lower-educated single men who have casual sex with sex workers abroad.

Dr Balaji insisted that a "scientific public health" approach would be the most effective way to tackle the significant rise in such cases.

So, to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids the authorities would have to take gay sexual behaviour into account.

"The gay advocacy issue is different from the public health issue," he said.

When a question from the floor was raised with regard to a purported "rise in sexual activities" in the gay community and the possibility of a public campaign or education in schools, the Minister clarified his point.

"I didn't say sex among gays is increasing, I have no knowledge about the sexual habits of gays. What I said was one of the high-risk groups for HIV/Aids is MSM (men having sex with men).

Even in the US, 17,000 cases were reported last year was in the gay community. That's over 50 per cent of the total number," he said.

So the Ministry will stay focused on its targets. And if sex education advocates hope to see a condom parade down Orchard Road to raise awareness of safe sex practices, they are likely to have a long wait.

Dr Balaji said that such controversial approaches to addressing sexual behaviour and HIV/Aids "only generate a lot of controversy and news", which is not the ministry's aim.

Addressing members of the American Chamber of Commerce yesterday, he encouraged businesses here to form an alliance with the Ministry to tackle the rise in HIV cases by implementing education programmes to prevent discrimination.

I couldn't say that I do not believe every single piece of statistics mentioned above, but do you think that 50% is too high a percentage for the gay community based on the total amount of HIV sufferers?

President Bush has been trying to suppress the legalisation of gay activities, as recently, he mentioned that he will not allow gay marriages, which was relatively similiar to Singapore. So has he been playing with the numbers to discourage people "not to convert to being gay"?

Singapore, on the other hand, took the statistics and magnified it. Like the recent NKF incident, the number of HIV positive patients may have also been jacked up, with special mention about the "serious rise" in gay communities.

That brings me to some questions: Does homosexuals get infected with HIV more easily? Based on the view of human's immunity system, will all homosexuals actually be "weaker" in a sense that we will contact HIV more easily? OR are homosexuals more ignorant than hetrosexuals based on safe-sex knowledge?


First question: Does homosexuals get infected with HIV more easily? Based on the view of human's immunity system, will all homosexuals actually be "weaker" in a sense that we will contact HIV more easily?

While assuming that everyone that is "normal" should be having a immunity system of the same level (homosexuals and hetrosexuals), doesn't that made it clear that the probability of anyone contacting HIV should be the same?

Take the 50% average for an example. If the US government haven't made changes to the statistics, 50% homosexuals, 50% hetrosexuals, does that make a difference? IF 50% are homosexuals, then it should in fact be perfectly fine, as the amount of hetrosexual patients is equal to the amount of homosexual patients.

So why the big fuss? Why do the Singapore government insist that HIV sufferers are mostly homosexuals? Though it was not specifically implied in the article, but anyone reading it will sure get an impression that MOST HIV sufferers are homosexuals.

No government in the world have records of it's citizen's sexual orientation, and take for granted that it is normal for males to like females and vise-versa. If anyone's argument is that the homosexuals belongs to a minority, and therefore the 50% is more like 80% of the whole gay community, his/her argument would NOT be valid.


Second question: Are homosexuals more ignorant than hetrosexuals based on safe-sex knowledge?

Hetrosexuals practice safe sex for two reasons: Birth control and protection of diseases.

Homosexuals practice safe sex for one reason: Protection of diseases.

I dare not say that homosexuals are actually more aware in practicing safe-sex, or will I say that hetrosexuals are more careful. I believe everyone is much the same.

I dare not take birth control as a probable and primary reason of why hetrosexuals practice safe sex MORE, that they will use condoms more often than homosexuals do. I am totally fine if you view it that way.

Even if the above are the reason why homosexuals do contact HIV more easily, will the ban of homosexual activities in Singapore contribute to a successful decrease in HIV cases? Absolutely not.

A ban, will firstly not be effective as sex is something people do in private. People do it and don't mention about them. How will a ban actually control over homosexual activities?

The government should in fact introduce some new safe-sex education targeted on gays and lesbians, so that it could have a better control of the whole HIV problem.

The government says that it will be actively taking part in the effort to decrease HIV infections, while all they did was to introduce bans on homosexual activities, and introducing safe-sex education ONLY targeted on the hetrosexual community. Isn't that an effortless "effort"?

The article did mention about "lower-educated single men" being in one of the high risk groups of HIV, next to the gay community, doesn't that sentence itself prove my point? If lower-educated men are the ones infected with these diseases, while educated gay people are also the infected bunch, doesn't that prove that the education on safe-sex between gays is not carefully enforced in Singapore?

If the whole aim of the government's new HIV education programme was only to "prevent discrimination", how is it supposed to work effectively to stop HIV? It is a great plan to educate the public about not discriminating HIV positive patients, but are they acting more to stop HIV from it's roots; getting infected in the first place?

I am certainly waiting for the next move by the government of whether it will introduce education programmes about safe-sex, not just for the hetrosexuals, but also for the homosexuals.

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