More importantly, as a parent, the author of this letter should have been confident enough in his/her influence over their child by communicating in an open manner regarding all issues. They should trust that the environment they have built within their family is able to resolve any potential issues they might have had with external influences over the child. Perhaps, this is the lashing out of a parent who is insecure about the level of regard his/her child has for him/her as opposed to the level of respect they have for their teacher. In that case, it is the responsibility of the parent to correct any such insecurity in their own homes and not in the public eye.

In any case, attitudes to sex and sex education in Singapore must change! Children will find out about these things even if you don’t discuss it and the best people to break the news to them are parents! Spit it out and talk about it – it’s happening everywhere else in the world and its happening right under your noses in sunny Singapore, albeit a tiny bit more hush-hush.

face the fact that this is reality, the world is evolving. the word gays/lesbians, homosexual are no longer taboo. chin, josie, TSM and COO are like ostriches..still hiding their heads in the ground. say what you like in your churches, stick to your beliefs-BUT NEVER IMPOSE yours to others! maybe he and his relations should migrate..

Abhorrent bigotry is abhorrent bigotry, and if they were doing mass-forwarding, they obviously knew that they were forfeiting their right to whatever shred of privacy anybody can expect over the internets; if they didn’t then they’re morons. Oh wait.

And you know what. Religion, unfortunately, tends towards exclusivity and intolerance by definition. If you are preaching truth and certainty and absolutes how is it possible, exactly, to not have your beliefs harden into immovable, uncompromising dogma? How does one believe in a one true god and saviour and still have room to accept the beliefs of others? Tolerance and inclusivity and inter-faith dialogues are all very noble concepts, but what happens when your son or daughter marries outside of your faith and converts when your faith specifically preaches that all who are not saved are damned? Matters of spiritual belief are extremely subjective and difficult to reconcile, and that is precisely why they need to be kept locked out of secular fields.

All that can – and should – really be done is to ensure that the borders between subjective belief and objective law are properly defined and vigilantly maintained, and discussions like this are necessary to keep people aware and wary of religious agendas seeping into politics.

As for the church thingy, I left the church more then 10 years ago. I would like to clarify for those who are reading this. The Bible talks about preaching the Word so that everyone knows Christ. The error most churches to is to play God; try to change people, smokers, drug addicts, gays and lesbians. They sang the song ” In His time” all the time but still failed to grasp the revelation of that. Leave it to God, in His time, he makes all things beautiful. Not the time and control of humans and the church. However, the bible says sent your house in order. The church should really just focus and put more efforts in building up their members’ life, family, etc, and not go change the world by their humanly efforts like what we are seeing in AWARE.