Join the pinkdot @ Hong Lim Park

Some of my friends would think those of us in People Like Us would have a grasp on activities within the gay community and be one of those leading the charge in any major event or breaking news. In some cases this is correct, but more often than not, a lot of things are beyond any of our control whether we like it or not. Activities around the gay community (if there is one) comes and goes, grows and shrinks, and we are constantly amazed by the groups that pop out of nowhere, well organized and well attended, even if those people have never heard of PLU!

The upcoming PinkDot.sg event at Hong Lim Park is one such event that none of the PLU exco are involved in. It started off as an adhoc thought for a few gay personalities to talk at Hong Lim Park somewhere in Nov 2008 (I believe), but that was put off and it waited its time. And I am glad it did because what had taken time to form is an event that is incredibly simply yet powerful, kudos to the organisers and their friends.

I mean what better way to reject prejudice, hatred and bigotry than to show how much love, joy and happiness there can be without those negative thoughts?

It is interesting when we contrast the anti-gay side, we often hear words like perverts, disgusting, illness, sickness, abnormal, abomination and negative words like fear, resist, reject, anger and hatred, mixed up with just a little so-called love and compassion. And what of the results of their campaign? Broken families, angry parents, rejected children, angry ex-gays, depression, suicide and even death.

On the side of the equality camp, we often hear about reconciliation, love, inclusiveness, joy, happiness, restfulness, compassion, sharing, openness, resulting in well-balanced happy families, productive gay people and their friends.

So which side do you prefer to be on?

Also have a VESAK DAY FULL OF AWARENESS, EQUALITY, LOVE and COMPASSION

The interconnectedness of civil movements

I always believe that a sign of a gracious and mature society is one in which there are laws that prevents discrimination 0f minorities and protects those who don’t have a voice. Singapore, based on its laws, is still a long way to go on that front.

Its very unfortunately that as a part of globalisation, we took in a lot of judeo-christian values with regard to sex and violence. Violence seems to be tolerated. Just look what kind of computer games, movies and songs depicting and justifying violence in the name of peace, justice, love, honor, revenge and just for fun. But when it comes to sex, everything is almost a no-no, no pre-martial sex, no homosex, no porn, etc. As if all the violence in our world now is due to sex and not petty power struggle, religious hatred, poverty, anger and money.

AWARE of wolves in sheep clothing

One of the problem with AWARE saga for outside commentators, that is those who have not dealt with religious right-wingers nor familiar with gay issues or women issues, is that they tend to paint the old guards in AWARE as sore losers, still wanting to grapple for power despite losing legally.

To be fair, the election was not illegal, I believe AWARE’s constitution allowed for such power grapping to happen.  So the issue here is not that some religious right-wingers have grabbed power in AWARE, but rather why and for what motive.

The old guards in AWARE having worked with women issue for so long would have good idea what for women’s right should and can take, including gay women issue and they will be aware of what kind of ideas would be detrimental for women.

DBS credit cards, FOTF, AWARE and homophobia

An interesting titbit arose from this article from CNA today: Women’s advocacy group Aware picks new president.

The newly elected president, Ms Josie Lau, is the VP of DBS Bank cards division. Her husband is, Alan Chin (no need to say more, just look up the internet) and guess who is his relative (according to sources, correct me if I am wrong)… Ms Thio Li-Ann is his cousin!

Now this examples the possibility of how DBS cards can help to promote a terrorist organisation (I will explain why I call it terrorist) like Focus on the Family’s “innocent” child care charity. Although, I must say that it could have been someone else in DBS.

Anyway, like I have said, its really AWARE’s business. The girls just have to be more organised next time to prevent such incidents from happening again.

DBS pulls out of charity promotion with Focus on the Family

Well, it happened, DBS has officially pulled themselves out of the charity promotion with Focus on the Family, after much protest from gay affirmative individuals and a huge amounts of complaints written to them.

Now their promotion linked have removed any mention of charity with FOTF:

http://www.dbs.com.sg/sg/personal/cards/promotions/xmas2008/

I received a 2nd reply from DBS after I queried them on whether the withdrawal was for real.

Dear Mr Wong

We thank you for your feedback and appreciate your concerns.

In line with DBS’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts that are geared towards supporting children and learning, several welfare organisations that support similar causes were short-listed.

It was never the intention of the Bank to discriminate against any group through this initiative. Nevertheless given feedback received, to demonstrate that DBS believes in diversity and inclusion, with immediate effect we will be removing the Christmas charity campaign.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Rena Leong
Assistant Vice President
Customer Care & Feedback Management
Consumer Banking Group Singapore
Fax: 6534-4077
Email Address: customerservice@dbs.com
Operation Hours: 8.30am to 6.15pm
Monday to Friday

DBS supports anti-gay organisation for charity this Christmas

Well, it seems like it all over town now. DBS has set up a promotion together with Focus on the Family so that consumers can donate via FOTF by spending on their credit cards.

http://www.dbs.com.sg/sg/personal/cards/promotions/xmas2008/

Update: Apparently, DBS have now removed any reference to FOTF in their promotion, however, we don’t know if they will secretly still donate money to FOTF instead.

No guess to why we are up against FOTF, the right-wing Christian fundamentalist organization hiding behind a rosy “family values” when their true agenda is to spread “Christian family values” and to build a Christian nation and to promote misinformation about gay people and trying to destroy gay people and their families through their pseudo Christian science.

May gay people and friends have already pledged not to use their DBS/POSB cards this Christmas and some have pledged to cancel all their accounts with DBS.

Anyway, here are some discussions around in the internet from Fridae, Ovidia Yu’s blog, and Miak’s blog

I have sent a feedback to DBS customer service on this matter 2 days ago and got this robotic reply.

Dear Mr Wong

We thank you for your feedback and appreciate your concerns.

Our charity partner, Focus on the Family (Singapore), is a non-religious and non-political organisation, supported and endorsed by the National Family Council and the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports in Singapore. Its community programmes are widely supported by like-minded socially responsible corporate citizens such as MediaCorp, Far East Group, to name a few.

The contribution from DBS will go towards supporting the children’s programmes in Singapore. This is part of our efforts at DBS to support families and children during this festive period. We had supported various local charities before in the past such as The Singapore Children’s Society during Christmas in 2006.

We would like to clarify that we do not take a portion from the cardmember’s retail spending to give to the charity. Cardholder can continue to spend and not redeem for the teddy bears, so there is no contribution towards Focus on the Family.

DBS will continue to play its part to support the community at large, and we hope to have your kind understanding and support.

Yours sincerely

Rena Leong
Assistant Vice President
Customer Care & Feedback Management
Consumer Banking Group Singapore
Fax: 6534-4077
Email Address: customerservice@dbs.com
Operation Hours: 8.30am to 6.15pm
Monday to Friday