Learn Chinese - Principle or prejudice?

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Opinion / Raymond Zhou

Principle or prejudice?

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-18 07:11

When an entertainment celebrity takes a moral stand, it often goes beyond
personal belief. That is why the moral crusade of a Chinese television
star has turned into an eye-catching headline.

Sun Haiying, who achieved stardom with a popular drama series, told a
reporter that homosexuality is "criminal in nature". That certainly goes
against both common sense and the legal definition, because China long
ago decriminalized the behavior. So there is little danger that Sun will
send to prison any of his many gay peers in the entertainment industry.

From what I surmise, Sun is not threatening prosecution for gays. The
Chinese word "zui", which he used in the interview, could be construed in
either a legal sense or a religious context. The English translation for
the latter is "sin", and unsurprisingly many among the conservative right
in the West would agree with Sun on his judgment of gays and lesbians.

While I respect Sun for upholding his opinion, I lament that he made a
private conviction into a public controversy. Celebrities have much more
clout than ordinary citizens. When they take a stance for or against an
issue, it is bound to have repercussions.

When Angelina Jolie adopts foreign orphans, her high-profile acts are a
call to attention to either the misery of the unfortunate or to her
self-righteous image. When Chinese actor Pu Cunxin appears in ads for
protecting the rights of AIDS patients, he is doing much more than a
simple financial donation. In both cases, stars threw their weight around
and tried to influence others.

Historically, Chinese people have been very tolerant towards
homosexuality. From online polls, one gets the impression that the
majority would respect others' lifestyle. Sun's repugnance could be
deeply moral or religious, in which case the dominant argument is, if
homosexuality spreads like a wildfire, the human race would ultimately be
extinct.

That is a fallacy. Homosexuality will never replace heterosexuality as
the majority sexual orientation. It is congenital but not contagious. The
reason he may feel otherwise is more gays are willing to come out of the
closet nowadays and some adopt an in-your-face strategy, thrusting their
presence into mainstream consciousness in an effort to fight
discrimination.

From a practical point of view, with tens of millions more men than women
in the country, gays can rectify the gender imbalance in their small way.
Some people may laugh at the notion, but at least one Chinese scholar is
actually serious about it as a solution.

There is also a chance that Sun Hai-ying derived his bigotry from
empirical experience. He may be abhorred by the gays he knows. Herein
lies the danger of equating a few unscientific samples with the whole
demographic.

By coincidence, this week's other "weird" story showed the flip side of
Sun's homophobia. Hengyuanxiang, a Shanghai-based fabric maker,
broadcasted its recruitment of lefties for middle-management positions.
The reason? They tend to be smart.

As a matter of fact, a parallel can be drawn between gays and lefties:
Both are minorities with less than 10 percent of the population; both are
widely considered congenital but are often put through special
"correction treatment" while young; both come with certain stereotypes,
either flattering or derogatory.

People like Sun Haiying may not realize that a group with tens of
millions of people cannot be neatly categorized with one pithy adjective,
complimentary or pejorative. This would be like fortune-telling that
boils down all the people born on the same day or in the same month to
one personality and one fate.

Ignorance could be fun in trivial things such as horoscopes, but it leads
to prejudice when applied with moral standards.

Email: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

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(China Daily 08/18/2007 page4)

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