To AWARE’s new exco: Please leave out your religion!

To AWARE’s new exco: Please leave out your religion!

SINGAPORE - The dramatic rise to AWARE’s leadership by a group of virtual unknowns kicked up a ruckus from within the organization itself all the way to cyberspace. What transpired was that 80 out of the 102 who turned up at the annual general meeting were new members who joined between January and March this year. Subsequently, the latter went on to elect many of their own peers into 9 out of 12 executive committee positions.

In the ensuing debates that followed, interesting information regarding the new executive committee members’ background surfaced. According to the older members, the newcomers were part of a Christian fundamentalist group that had the intention of taking over an existing organization in its entirety. The plot further thickens with revelations of the anti-homosexuality stand of the new Honorary Secretary and others in the new committee. It was revealed that they were prominent in writing against homosexuality in the Straits Times forum page, and this extended to their supporters too.

If fulfilling religious agenda is the motivation behind the takeover, AWARE could be facing the problem of a religious groupthink. Decisions will be based solely on the stands of such a group, and external ideas not conducive to the latter’s agenda will be rejected. For instance, would this group be in favor of pushing for the emancipation of a sexual minority group such as lesbians?

And would this religious groupthink result in AWARE losing the focus of its vision in achieving equality for all regardless of race, religion and sexuality? If the new members were to pursue their anti-homosexuality and anti-lesbian agenda in their capacity as AWARE members, it would be hard to see how they could be helping women achieving equality status. The bright side of this episode is that the public spotlight is now on the new members, and it appears from the public perspective, they seemed to be dissociating from their religious link.

Thus, this publicity may be positive in the sense that the newcomers’ credibility is now under scrutiny, which is why they are not keen to give signals of any religious link at the current moment. If they pursue any religious agenda, they will simply lose credibility. And AWARE risks degenerating into a quasi-religious organization, and losing its credibility as a whole too. From there, many possible eventualities abound, one of which is the establishment of another pro-women organization with AWARE’s original vision. In fact, hardly anyone would be surprised if the older members of AWARE were to set up a new organization based on similar principles, and this is followed by mass defection of dissatisfied members. AWARE will then become nothing more than a Christian women’s organization in pursuit of the Christian agenda.

It isn’t rare for a religious group to attempt seeking ways to pursue its religious agenda at the state level. Perhaps, the latter has a noble vision, reinforced by the belief that a state that lies on the bedrock on its beliefs will be better off. However, reality contradicts. In a seminal study by Gregory Paul and published in the Journal of Religion and Society, the least theistic secular democracies like Japan, France and Scandinavia have low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex-related dysfunction and even abortion. U.S., which professed to be a Christian nation demonstrated by absolute belief in God and the Bible’s literacy in addition to attendance of religious services, suffer from high homicide rates like Portugal, another Christian nation. And the U.S. has 6 to 300 times higher rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection as compared to other pro-evolution developed secular democracies. And what is more startling is that quantitative data seems to contradict the belief that more secular cultures lead to increased abortion rates. In fact, it was shown that increased adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with theistic belief, and again such numbers are uniquely high in the U.S.. Early adolescent pregnancies have dropped in democracies, but remain twice to dozen times higher in the U.S..

And according to Margaret Talbot in an article published in the The New Yorker titled “Red Sex, Blue Sex”, findings by social scientists and scholars comparing the socially liberal “blue” states to the sexual abstinence advocating “red” states within the US seems to be consistent with the theistic-secular divide elucidated by Gregory Paul. The highest teen-pregnancy rates were in Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas, whom are all red states, whilst blue states are amongst those with the lowest rates, with the exception of North Dakota, which is a red state. There was higher tendency to start families early due to unplanned pregnancies in the red states. Early marriage put couples at greater risk of divorce. Thus, states with the highest divorce rates are Nevada, Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho and West Virginia, all of whom are red states.

Mr Alex Au, a popular socio-political commentator, highlighted his concerns that these new executive committee members might influence AWARE to preach abstinence and denounce abortion and homosexuality when invited to give sexuality talks to schools. For all the good intentions behind the preachings, it may result in undesirable outcomes as described in the aforementioned studies.

Since empirical observations have shown that there is no benefit in building a society that rests on the fundamentals of a theistic religion, religion should remain separate from the state. Even more so for a secular organization like AWARE. And staying secular might be the way to go, as secular democracies have been observed in such studies to be better off than their theistic counterparts.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=27516.2