Below was a petition letter I emailed last Sunday to a member of parliament representing my constituency.
It was one I had originally planned to draft and send out next month.
However, I recently found out a major announcement will be made by my nation’s Prime Minister tomorrow at his annual National Day Rally speech. One that will forever and irrevocably change the trajectory of my country’s future.
So I felt compelled to bring forward my plans for this letter. In order to make my stand known and clear on a major law that would soon be repealed by the announcement.
I only regret I, and many of the silent majority in my nation, had left this too late.
Still, I’m boldly posting this petition letter here to keep a promise I made to my sons. And to remind myself never again to stay silent and leave things to the last. Because then I’ll have to accept my “role as a fellow accomplice” to whatever follows.
Even if whatever follows goes against everything I believe in!
So here’s my petition letter.
Dear Constituency Representative
I’m a resident here and I wish to bring up this matter of S377A for your urgent attention.
I’m part of the so-called silent majority who wishes S377A to stay, and the sanctity of marriage enshrined into our country’s Constitution.
I no longer wish to stay silent, hence this petition letter to you.
And, hopefully through you, to the rest of the leadership in this country.
“We let it happen“
Last Saturday, my boys (11 and 13 years of age) and I were watching an old Harrison Ford movie made in 1997 called Air Force One. You might have watched it before too.
In the opening scene, Ford (who plays the role of the US President) gave a speech I felt spoke to the times we now live in.
He said (and I quote the relevant bits below):
“The truth is we acted too late. Only when our own national security was threatened did we act. We let it happen…we issued economic sanctions and hid behind the rhetoric of diplomacy. How dare we? … real peace is not just the absence of conflict but the presence of justice.”
For the longest time, I thought that rationality, common sense, and the institution of marriage in this world will always prevail. Or at least they will in my country.
I was wrong!
The deafening roar of an unruly vocal minority has stirred this nation and led us to this moment in history. Where ordinary folks and parents living what we hope to be quiet and peaceful lives, are forced to shake off our complacency. For the sake of our children and the future of our nation.
We’re now forced to come out of the woodworks to speak up for our families.
By now there is already enough furor over this matter I believe. Not to mention cogent arguments published publicly to let leaders like yourself know. That the silent majority does NOT wish the very definition of marriage and family here to be altered by S377A’s repeal. And the reasons and arguments are more than air-tight!
But with Ford’s words in that movie, I realise that this is no longer something I can assume is understood and embraced by my leaders.
Therefore, I must for the sake of my boys, and for parents everywhere, speak up.
I must add my voice clearly and loudly here to a now jittery and unsettled nation. To re-calibrate what I’ve been complicit in allowing to happen over these past few years (“We let it happen.”).
So with this petition, I wish to say again…
…We must NOT repeal S377A.
If we do, then we must augment that decision with clear, unequivocal, and unshakeable terms and conditions. Ones that fully protect the definition, institution, and sanctity of marriage as a holy and lawful union between a biologically-born man and a biologically-born woman.
And protect their offsprings that have ensured the continuation of civilisations everywhere since the dawn of time.
So NO efforts must be spared to ensure that marriage IS enshrined into our nation’s Constitution NOW.
Make no mistake. The activists that form the vocal minority do NOT merely wish to repeal S377A. They’ve already made their laundry list of demands public and taken it all the way to the United Nations where it was made public last year.
Should we allow them to hold sway? Or for them as well as toxic political global and foreign actors to influence our nation’s sovereignty and decision-making process?
I do not know the pressures the government is currently under that’s forcing your hand to repeal S377A, but my sensing is that it’s going to happen.
What’s really going on
What I do know is the raucous activists and practitioners of the alternative lifestyle of LGBTQIA+ are this vehement now because they were maligned and disenfranchised for the longest time. Not because they fully understand what inclusion means when it comes to caring for the marginalised in society, like those born with disabilities or living in abject poverty.
Their desires for change may sound like they are championing the weak and vulnerable.
I guarantee you, they aren’t.
Many longitudinal research studies have already revealed that most members of the LGBTQIA+ community come from broken families. Families where there was an absentee parent. Or where they had been victims of sexual abuse.
Unbeknownst to even themselves, they had struggled privately for the longest time with a sense of identity and gender. Unfortunately, they came to the erroneous conclusion they were not born heterosexual.
They were also influenced by the so-called advanced Western civilisations into thinking that this (alternative sexuality and gender identity) is who they are, even though the truth is the human identity is so much more than that!
We are more than our individual parts!
Does, for instance, having diabetes or being born blind encapsulates one’s WHOLE identity as a human being?
The simple answer is NO.
And, by the way, those same Western civilisations are now paying a heavy societal price for allowing things to get out of hand.
They are in a state of constant fracturing. Much of that can be traced to complacency by the silent majority. And the failure to monitor and address trends and changes in the status quo.
There are former LGBTQIA+ citizens moving in our midst who are living proof that though they may still possess feelings of same-sex attraction (SSA), that in no way rules their lives anymore like it once did.
They understand that a person’s identity is so much more than “someone with SSA”. They now live fuller lives with dignity, even though they suffer indignities from those actively fighting for S377A’s repeal and calling them traitors.
For everyone’s sake, this is my petition
It’s for them, and for my family and others like me, that I’m writing here to appeal to you.
To let our wishes be heard loud and clear by the powers that be.
As Ford’s character in the movie made clear, ”real peace is not just the absence of conflict but the presence of justice.”
The just thing to do is keep S377A. And enshrine into our Constitution (for perpetuity) the definition of marriage. Which is, and MUST remain, the lawful union between a biological male and a biological female.
No exceptions.
Then, having done so, begin the clean-up job. To help leaders and families reach out to the LGBTQIA+ community. To show them the time-tested beauty and strength heterosexual marriages and families possess. And to love them for their ENTIRE being (and not just their sexuality).
To keep our nation thriving into the unknown future.
Let’s not have future generations look back at this moment in our country’s still-fledgling history and say we “acted too late.“
I hope this petition won’t merely stay on your desktop, but will also be shared with your colleagues and fellow leaders.
Thank you.
