A Family Values Story

By Clarence Singam

Why do reports in the local (Singapore) media on gay related issues almost always include moralistic type quotes by ‘family values advocates?’ Clarence Singam writes a personal essay in response to a family life educator’s comments that the gay lifestyle undermines basic family values.

It was a lazy Sunday morning for me. The issue of Senior Minister of State for Health, Dr Balaji Sadasivan's comment made in Parliament about HIV and gay parties seemed to have abated a little. I picked up the Sunday papers from the nearby 7-11 store for my morning read. Flipping through the papers, whatever thoughts I had of a restful morning was rudely shoved aside. From The New Paper, I kept getting distracted by salacious pictures while trying to read what was a reasonable attempt at balanced reporting. A week or two down the road all I remember from the article is the picture of the guy dancing away wearing only his skimpy yellow trunks.

I was however seriously disappointed when I read The Sunday Times (ST) on the link between gay parties and HIV in "What happened in Sentosa gay parties" on March 13, 2005. Instead enjoying the balance that the ST has often tried to bring to the gay issue, I ended up being smashed in the face by a certain family life educator who basically called my kind and I “unnatural.” And as if that was not enough, my kind and I – all in one large mass of bodies writhing away in some orgiastic frenzy in her mind – are part of “the gay lifestyle (that) undermines the basic family value of committed love, the importance of marriage and the stability of a family.” I spent the whole morning seething as my disappointment turned to anger and then rage.

From an issue about HIV infection rates amongst MSM, the discussion has evolved into the role of the Nation party in HIV transmission and degenerated into how gay people are unnatural, anti-family and should be stopped from introducing their “alternative lifestyles” into society. While I am deeply concerned about the first issue, and curious about the second, I am downright offended by the blatant bigotry of the third.

I don’t know about you but I am quite sick and tired of being labeled and characterised as a person who is out to undermine the basic fabric of our society. The kind of defamatory comments made by these people in the public reeks of homophobia and bigotry. And that we as a society, are not calling people to be accountable not to allow their homophobia to be spurted out as wholesome discourse is frightening. At a personal level such views desecrate my personhood and vandalise the sacred relationships I have with my family and precious friends like Teng, his wife Cynthia and their children.

Well. Dear Madam Family Life Educator, let this “family values destroyer” share with you about his friendship with a man called Teng and then see if you can come tell me to my face the blatant bigotry you quoted while hiding behind authoritative titles like “life family educator.”

I first met Teng in Australia. I had gone to university with a bunch of friends. In the initial months as we were getting used to a new culture we used to meet regularly for dinner. From the first time I met Teng I was drawn to him. He was good looking, sensitive and somewhat quiet. For the first few weeks I can’t remember a single conversation we had. But one dinner changed that.

It was winter and Teng’s last class had been delayed. The dinner group had gathered for dinner at the dorm’s cafeteria and it being a rather cold day, the rest ordered their food and dug in straight away. I chose not to and waited for Teng instead. He arrived twenty minutes later and we ordered our food together. That simple gesture somehow touched Teng and a friendship started. That was how our relationship began – we didn’t meet each other at some wild orgy or cruise each other at a famous mall. We just waited for each other over dinner. But then isn’t that how many relationships start – straight or gay?

Over time I found that Teng had a zany side despite his introvertedness. And he in turn found that despite my seeming intellect, I was quite inept even in a simple matter like how to fit a pencil lead into a mechanical pencil. I actually used to insert the lead into the pencil from the front. And then of course Teng also taught me how to flush a toilet. Having grown up in a house with a squat toilet I had never seen a flush with a handle before. The mechanical pencil saga remains a standing joke between us to this day. And let’s not get into the flush saga here.

Looking back I find it amazing that our relationship lasted eight years. Mum even now has a graduation photo of the two of us hanging from the wall – a proxy for the marriage photo people like me may never have. Those eight years were tumultuous ones though. Not because gay relationships can’t survive but because deeply religious as we were then, the internalised conflicts of believing you are living in a state of constant sin and absolute condemnation, is bound to take its toll on any relationship – straight or gay.

Our relationship finally ended without us even properly ending it since we never even acknowledged its existence until long after it was all over. And yet even people at church used to refer to us then, as each other’s half without ever realising the implications of those words (another standing joke between us). But we continued to stay with each other – still maintaining the separate rooms we had always maintained.

Two years later, Teng asked me if he could pursue a relationship with Cynthia. I consented, of course though he didn’t have to ask me. Cynthia was a friend too.

Cynthia and Teng’s courtship lasted a year. He told her about his sexual orientation before they got married and I was genuinely happy for Teng. Cynthia was a wonderful lady – simple, earnest and full of life. But as their marriage date came closer it became increasingly difficult for me emotionally. I was happy for them and yet I felt left out. Teng was moving on and after 11 years, I would be living alone for the first time in my entire adult life. What made it even more difficult was that Teng did not seem to sense any kind of loss – as if the last 11 years did not mean much after all.

It is easy to speak about it now but then it plunged me into tremendous emotional pain. It took me close to a year to work through the grief and anger. The morning when I was able to finally let go and move on remains precious to me even today. I was with a friend who had taken to meeting me regularly to encourage me. And then one of those mornings something a sage said over two millennia ago dropped like a pin, a lancet that speared the festering wound and removed the pain: “Greater love has no man than this. That a man lay down his life for his friend.”

That morning I realised that I had loved Teng truly. And it was not an unnatural or a destructive love. It was just love. It dawned on me, that while I was no saint, in a very real way, I had truly laid down my life for Teng, my friend. And while no one may ever remember me one day, in the words of that beloved sage, I counted amongst the great men of this world.

So I had the choice of being bitter or treating the love that I had given him as an act of grace. And somehow it no longer mattered whether Teng felt any sense of loss leaving me. An act of grace never demands recompense. It is a gift and that is what makes it so very costly. I cried much that morning but they were tears of relief. I could now move on.

As it turned out, I ended up preaching the wedding sermon at Teng and Cynthia’s church’s wedding. It was one of my best public speeches. Sometimes life is like a fairy tale. And perhaps too sometimes there is vindication in this life. The day after the wedding dinner Cynthia called me. She was frantic and did not know what to do. Teng had locked himself in the bathroom and was wailing for no apparent reason. I got Cynthia to pass the phone to Teng. In between his heaving sobs he said he did not know if he could live without me.

I arranged for Teng to see a counsellor who helped him work through the very same grief I had worked through only months earlier. Subsequently, Cynthia and Teng asked me if I would move in with them. I had my reservations but less than two months after their marriage I moved in with them. And in the three years that followed, I witnessed the birth of their children – En and Claire, my godchildren. In fact Claire was named after me and I continue to have a special bond with her. Cynthia keeps pestering me to stay close to Claire, “I know this girl will take care of you when you are old.”

Many of my friends think it strange that I could have moved in with Teng and Cynthia. But why not? Somehow my presence in that household brought a stability to their relationship. And I feel honoured to have been part of their journey together.

In 2000, I finally moved out after my partner, Han and I got together. That was six years ago. Han and I still visit Teng and Cynthia. Not too long ago I invited the family to an occasion that had many gay people present. Cynthia and the kids really enjoyed themselves and have been asking me when she will be able to attend another similar event. Teng however, approached me soon after and asked me not to invite him to an event like that again. He found it difficult to handle his attractions to some of the men he met that day. Han and I are the only gay people he interacts with these days.

I could jump on my activist soapbox and shout out how the ex-gay movement does not change a person’s sexual orientation. I could even point to other ex-gay friends I have who struggle and still sometimes fool around with men behind their wives back. But I am not interested. Unlike many from the fundamentalist side of the divide, Teng and these friends are not objects of activism for me to stereotype and vilify to achieve my own social agendas. That is immoral. The fact is Teng and Cynthia are human beings just like you and me; we hurt the same, we bleed the same – straight or gay. I love them and want their choices in life to work out.

Recently six-year-old En came to me with a huge cheeky grin and asked Han and I in front of his parents if Han and I are married. We all had a good laugh over his innocent kindness while Teng blushed a little. But beneath our laughs, Han’s and mine were tinged with a certain bitter-sweetness. We wish we could have said, “Yes.” Instead we said, “Sort of.” Maybe one day Teng will be able to speak at my wedding.

So Dear Madam Family Life Educator, the next time you think of calling a gay person unnatural, anti-family and anti-committed love, just remember my relationship with Teng and Cynthia then come tell it to my face while trying maintain your personal integrity as a decent human being.

Now, can we get back to the public health issue about HIV prevention?

Clarence Singam, is a human being. He has a Masters degree in applied psychology and is a counseling psychologist who heads Oogachaga a non-profit pro-family sexual orientation affirming counseling and personal development agency. Oogachaga specialises in lesbian and gay psychotherapeutic issues. He may be contacted at clarence@oogachaga.com.