balaji thing:

it was really in very bad taste for him to not only blame the gay community, but pinpoint an event and degrade the whole issue to "seeding infection" -- an obviously explosive comment, with no conclusive data whatsoever. while it's true in many parts of the world that AIDs spreads faster in the gay community, gays are still a minority in the AIDs victims here. and the general Asian AIDs situation seems to be more with hets than gays, because it's been more among the unaware than the promiscuous. (who says all gays are promiscuous anyway. gross generalisation.)

granted, he himself says that it's only a hypothesis and all, but being a public figure he should know that by quoting such a theory, he's validating it to some extent. shouldn't politicians etc have a responsibility NOT to give controversial opinions about very controversial issues if they don't have strong evidence?

atleast the fact that the article was on the frontpage of ST shows that the newspaper is venturing to be more open about the whole issue of homosexuality in singapore, and sparking discussion and all.

also: on fridae.com it says that an AfA booth handing out condoms etc at Nation.04 was closed down because the authorities felt it was promoting gay sex. this is just despicable and irresponsible. if the point is to curb the AIDs epidemic, then any group that is willing to acknowledge that gay sex WILL happen and that any sex does bring with it the risk of AIDs and is willing to try and promote SAFE sex is doing something good. and then the government goes and fucks it up.

they can't be deluding themselves that NOT handing out condoms will reduce the number of sexual acts going on that night, can they? or do they think that just because gay sex is illegal - which defies sense in itself - that people should not try to make it safer? it makes absolutely zero sense to me. in my opinion, anything that promotes safe sex among everyone - not just gays - should be authorised. especially as fridae also says that blaming gays for introducing AIDs may make people complacent about heterosexual sex.

like the website says, putting the spotlight on the gays is just counterproductive because increased stigma will just lead to increased reluctance to get tested etc, when the very root could have been that more people are getting tested and therefore there's been an increase in IDENTIFIED AIDs victims.

another article on fridae says:
"[balaji] said Singapore was fortunate that HIV had not entered the general population in a big way, with the disease generally limited to two distinct groups of men that needed attention: "MSM i.e. the gays, and heterosexual men having casual sex in other countries."

He added, "Of the two, the gays are the bigger concern.""

1. people in singapore have casual sex. 2. since when is a rise of 23 cases in a gay community of thousands big statistical evidence that they should be a bigger problem? 3. perhaps it's just people are getting more comfortable with coming out with their homosexuality and with getting tested, thus the rise in gay AIDs cases. 4. gay AIDs victims are still only a third of all cases, and yet they find any excuse to pintpoint the gay community for causing the problem?

you know i don't think i deny that gays might very well be the problem. it's just that how can balaji go around making accusations with no concrete evidence? because making baseless accusations just shows that they seem to care less about countering an AIDs epidemic than making evident their distaste for homosexuality.

and conspiracy theory no. 2: maybe they're just trying to shut down the Nation parties because they morally disapprove of public gay fraternisation. if they can straightfacedly keep a law that puts restrictions on the very private act of sex, then i can easily see the government secretly having such an objective as well.