Malaysia: Buddhists say ‘come out’
The Venerable Miao Jan, coordinator of the Buddhist Prajna Meditation Association in Kuala Lumpur, told an audience of 200 that gay people should “come out bravely and not live in the closet”.
The comments were made at a conference hosted by the Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia and the Buddhist Research Society of Malaysia.
At a seminar titled ‘Homosexuality: The Controversy in the Midst of Morality and Social Value’, Miao Jan, a prominent Buddhist nun, encouraged tolerance and understanding towards LGBTI people.
Miao Jan said that gays and lesbians should be able to live honestly in their sexuality.
“Let gay people talk about their love life. We could only respect them and learn how to get along with them,” she said.
Her comments were made in the midst of a conservative backlash against Malaysia’s first traditional Chinese lesbian wedding and the wedding celebration of MCC minister Reverend Ouyang Wen Feng and his American husband.
Miao Jan said such marriages were about the happiness of the couple, and as long as they broke no laws and fulfilled their responsibilities to each other, there was not a problem.
She was also asked whether she thought same-sex parenting was bad for society.
“How much happiness can straight families today guarantee their children? The divorce rate is high these days, and this should give us room for thought,” she said.
China has a long history of Same-Sex Marriage. The Malaysian Chinese community has not lived through the destructive Cultural Revolution, but has had to put up with a racist government for some time, that openly has policies that discriminate against people born of Chinese origin. So it is brave to ask people to come out, in a country where you face jail and a flogging simply for making love to your lifelong partner.
During the debate in Hong Kong to decriminalise homosexuality in the 90’s, the Cantonese community had terrible homophobic newspaper headlines, as the history of homosexuality in China was not taught by the British. Brave Cantonese scholars took it upon themselves to come out with the history of homosexuality and point out that criminalization was a colonial product. Thus homosexuality was decriminalised as views changed once people had facts.
The first thing in Australia opponents of equality argue is it never happened in all of history. It is important to correct these lies usually made by muck raking church men. Piece by piece we are all putting to together the jigsaw puzzle of our own history, that has been scattered by people who seek to do us harm, those opposing equality.
We are winning.