In Thursday's edition of The New Paper, the cover story was
about a gay male teacher coming out of the closet on his blog. He
removed the post after his students stumbled across it, even though
he did not give them the address. It was rather naive of him to
think that it'd work as planned, even though I applaud his coming
out.
The spokesperson from his school contradicted himself. He was
quoted as saying that the school was "mindful of the views of
stakeholders, especially parents who would not be placing their
children under the charge of a
teacher who advocates homosexuality", and then added that
"he has clarified that he had no
intention of advocating homosexuality to students".
What was more disturbing was the Ministry's response. It "does not
condone any open espousal of homosexuality by a teacher through any
form" as "(teachers) are often seen as role models by their
students". Doesn't anyone find this ironic? Is MOE preaching
tolerance only in the areas of race and religion? What about the
idea of being true to oneself, which I probably wouldn't find in
any of their textbooks?
No teacher should be found guilty of impressing homosexuality on
students simply on the basis of his orientation until it is proven
so. Besides, I presume that no-one is preaching that
heterosexuality is wrong (while the opposite is true), but rather
acceptance and tolerance. (There are a few things happening in
other countries that go beyond this that I don't agree with, but
let's stick to the topic of this thread)
P.S. Turns out that he took down the post for other reasons.
