Love Wins

 

My sister got married to her partner yesterday in an outdoor ceremony. It was a beautiful ceremony. Our patchwork family came together from as far as Australia, Singapore and the USA. On her partner’s side, they came as far as Sierra Leone in West Africa. This was an event filled with plenty of laughter and not to mention good food.

I bring up my sister’s wedding because in Singapore finally managed to repeal that most pointless of laws, 377A at the end of 2022. The law, which criminalises sexual relations between men had been something of a controversial topic and it took several years before the Government agreed to remove this colonial era law.

You could, I guess, argue that it was a tough act for the government to carry out. While the LGBTQ community in Singapore had argued that the law was discriminatory, there were also the voices of the shrill “conservatives” who argued that allowing homosexual behaviour would lead to the collapse of society.

I’ve argued that no matter what one thinks of the LGBTQ community, the law was clearly pointless. It didn’t protect anyone except repressed homosexuals who needed the law to protect them from being themselves. I believe a former Chief Justice and two former Attorney-Generals have said as much even if they expressed it in much better terms. So, I am happy that the Singapore Government has finally seen the obvious – that every argument made in favour of keeping the law has been proven to be nonsensical.

However, there was a compromise. In return for lifting 377A, marriage is enshrined in the Singapore constitution as being between a man and a woman. Hence, while the LGBTQ can legally have sex with their chosen partners, their rights to have their relationships protected still does not exist.

Should this matter? The Nordic countries for example, are filled with couples who happily live together and have children but do so without that contract called marriage. Surely our LGBTQ community can do the same.

Ironically, it was Ms. Stephanie Thio of TSMP Law (Ms. Thio is the sister-in-law of Professor Thio Li-Ann, Singapore’s most prominent anti-gay activist) who argued that we need to start thinking of the protections that LGBTQ couples have. As my youngest brother’s girlfriend said, “If anything happens to him, the hospital isn’t going to let me do anything as his girlfriend. It’s a different story if I am his wife.” In a heterosexual relationship, a wife is legally allowed to take care of a husband should anything happen to him and visa-versa. By refusing to grant legal recognition to LGBTQ relationships, you actually deny an individual the right to be cared for by the person who is likely to know them best.

I go back to the example of my sister. When she first came out and told me, I was a little taken back. However, she was still the same person after she told as she was before she told me. Nothing changed because of her admission. She remains the sister I grew up loving.

Once the proverbial cat was out of the bag, she seemed happier. From what little I got to see of her relationships, it seemed that she was happier in her “girl-girl” relationships than in her “boy-girl” relationships. She was initially a bit apprehensive about coming out to my mother but everything turned out cool.

My step-father, who grew up in the 1950s in the USA (not exactly a LGBTQ-Friendly era), said it best at last night’s wedding. In his speech he said, “I didn’t lose a daughter tonight. I gained one.”

I know that the argument is that it’s argued that same-sex relationships are not “normal.” However, what defines normal? My sister’s marriage to another woman involved letting families know. It planning an event and by extension a life together. She wanted everybody to know.

My first marriage, which was a “normal” heterosexual marriage between a man and a woman wasn’t like that. I literally shuddered at the idea of planning a life together and I made it clear that I didn’t want my family to know that I was getting legally bound to her. I acknowledged to her that whilst I would try and make it work with her, I didn’t see my life with her as being filled with happiness.

So, what’s normal here? You could say that my sister’s marriage is not normal because it was with someone with the “wrong” gender. You could say mine was with someone of the “right” gender. However, if you leave that aside, my sister actually got it right. Her marriage made everyone in the family happy because she was happy. As my step-dad said, he gained a daughter and I gained a sister. In my first marriage, I actually risked losing my family. My mother actually made me promise I’d get out of the marriage if I was unhappy and the family celebrated the day, I took out a Protection Order against her and when she actually saw the light and divorced me.

 

We are often obsessed with the wrong things. In marriage we get obsessed with gender, social status and prospects. We don’t think enough about the things that count like love. If there’s anything that made my trip worthwhile is the fact that my sister’s wedding showed me that love wins and I managed to gain an entire family in the process.