THINK AGAIN - 20 Jun 09 , 14:03 PM

Anyone who thinks ST is going to stop being a platform for the LGBT’s, THINK AGAIN.
Read today’s article under ASIA. Look at what our national media is doing. No doubt just reporting “facts” but again, in a bid to push the pro gay agenda to public space.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Asia/China/Story/STIStory_392792.html

Home > Asia > China > Story
June 20, 2009
MEMO FROM BEIJING
'Coming out' in China
While homosexuality is still largely a social taboo, Chinese society is slowly opening up
By Sim Chi Yin, China Correspondent

Excerpts:
In a survey of 400 people across Chinese cities last year, sociologist Li Yinhe, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, found what she termed a 'quite high' level of tolerance of gays - 'possibly because China has no widely held religion and hence no religion-based opposition to homosexuality like in the West'.

A crowd of 200 gay, straight, Chinese and expatriate guests gathered over soft drinks and beer at the Songzhuang Art District on the city's outskirts for what organisers quietly hailed as a breakthrough for gays in China, where homosexuality was delisted as a 'mental illness' only in 2001.

In Shanghai, the country's first week-long Pride Festival reached its climax last Saturday with drag shows, a 'hot body' contest and a symbolic gay wedding ceremony.

Mardi Gras it was not, but after the police stopped three of the 10 planned events, the rest went off largely without a hitch, said Shanghai-based organiser Hannah Miller, a school teacher.

Slowly but surely, in a gradually liberalising social environment, ever more 'lalas' and 'comrades' are coming out.

Gays are also becoming more visible in the media here. Last week, the English-language China Daily ran a front-page story and an editorial touting the Pride Festival in Shanghai as a symbol of a progressive China. Even the usually staid Xinhua state news agency carried a lengthy feature story detailing Beijing's gay scene just before the Olympics Games.

And last week's issue of the widely read Southern Weekend newspaper splashed the story of a pair of Guangdong university students 'coming out' - complete with a photo of the men clasping hands.

Dr He Xiaopei, executive director of the independent Pink Space Sexuality Research Centre in Beijing, said: 'With more activities and media coverage, gays here can be seen more readily and people then realise 'Oh, they are just ordinary people'. All that helps with social acceptance.'

In a survey of 400 people across Chinese cities last year, sociologist Li Yinhe, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, found what she termed a 'quite high' level of tolerance of gays - 'possibly because China has no widely held religion and hence no religion-based opposition to homosexuality like in the West', she wrote on her blog.

That most of China's gay men dutifully marry also means a group of women, now known as tong qi (or wives of comrades), are unwittingly exposed to the risk of Aids - not to mention, emotionally and sexually neglected.

Gay women like 'Amanda', 26, an attractive media professional, simply lead a double life.

To her mother, aunts and colleagues, she is an eligible but picky woman who has been match-made, without success, about 50 times.

'It's the only way not to hurt everyone's feelings,' she said.

Likewise for divorced civil servant 'W', 39, who had been married for 11 years before falling for a woman five years ago.

She has not told her family she is gay but is hoping to have a child with her partner.
Since it is illegal for China's hospitals to artificially inseminate an unwed woman, 'W' will resort to a do-it-yourself procedure with donated sperm.

The most difficult part for her will come after she becomes pregnant.

'I will have to tell my family that I'm gay. And then I will have to marry some guy - just to get the right paperwork for my child to be registered and to go to school - and then divorce him.'