Yahoo News: Hwa Chong Institution suspends staff member for anti-LGBTQ+ content: report

The Humanist Society (Singapore) was quoted in Yahoo News: Hwa Chong Institution suspends staff member for anti-LGBTQ+ content: report

There was an incident at Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) in which a school counsellor giving a sex education talk used content that discriminated against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) people. In his presentation on 13 Jul 2022 to the Secondary 4 cohort, he had made unsubstantiated claims such as how a majority of homosexuals have problems with intestinal worms and how a large proportion of them are paedophiles. The slides from the presentation were later widely shared on social media.

The Humanist Society released a statement and it was reported on this article:

The Humanist Society (Singapore) also put up a media statement on its website saying that the video was produced by truelove.is, an evangelical organisation serving the Christian community in Singapore.

“It is inappropriate that such a video is shown in a national school such as HCI to an audience coming from all backgrounds, including those who are not religious,” the society – which seeks to represent non-religious people in Singapore – wrote in its statement.

“Unlike adults, students in a school setting do not always have the choice to opt out of such sessions. Besides, HCI is a secular institution and not a religious establishment.

“We urge the Ministry of Education, and all public schools under MOE, to ensure that sexuality education in school, including those conducted by external vendors, has content that is suitable for all races and religions, including the non-religious.”

The society added that Christian organisations and individuals have the religious freedom to conduct Christian and Christianity-inspired sexuality education within the Christian community.

“There is no need for Christians to carry out evangelism in national schools, whether openly or covertly,” it wrote.