Demonstrating at the Cathedral Church of Singapore (Anglican)

By Tuck Leong

30th August 1998

[Read about the reason for the protest and the format of Tuck Leong's mid-day prayers.]

I arrived at the Cathedral Church at around 1045 in the morning, it was pouring rather heavily. There, I met up with my co-protester Benni, who is the other Anglican in our group. Two friends, both who had sometime in their lives renounced religion joined us. Bless their hearts for this act of solidarity and yes, we made Eucharist together.

The first act of protesting was to unfurl my pride flag. This was the only thing that told others of our queerness and it had a card pasted on it, which said "God loves all Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Persons too!" I was getting quite nervous by then as crowd gathers outside the Cathedral waiting to enter. Kenneth, another friend of ours, was there to give support, while remaining outside during the service. His words " Don't start anything if you cannot pull it through" quickly had me slinging the flag over my arm.

We found our seat in the Cathedral and the service began. The theme of the Service of Morning Prayers with Holy Communion was "the suffering Community" and both the readings and the sermon lent themselves to great lesbian and gay significance. Thus a sense of irony ran through as we participated in the worship.

The gospel reading for the day was taken from Matthew 10:16-22. It was actually a passage which I had considered including in our Mid-Day Prayers.

"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. So you must be as clever as snakes, but as innocent as doves. Be on your guard. People will haul you into court, they will flog you in the synagogues. For my sake you will be dragged before rulers and governors as witnesses to them and to the gentiles...

Siblings will betray siblings to death, and their parents their children; children will rise up against their parents and have them executed. Everyone will hate you because of me. But whoever stands firm until the end will be saved."

My thoughts immediately went to the trial of +Righter, who was placed before a Church court being charged for the heresy of ordaining a gay man to the priesthood. Then one also societies where "sodomy" is punishable by death and also of children rejected by their families just because of their sexual orientation.

Alex+ Paaten was the preacher and celebrant of the Holy Eucharist. In his sermon he said there are 2 main causes of suffering. One is institutionalised religion and the next is the family. How true. While his premise was the persecution of Christianity by non-Christian societies and families, we were hoping our presence will at least make an association as to how institutionalised Christianity and rabidly conservative families had made one hell of a life for many of us.

As the service progress, we were joined by two other friends. Both non-Anglican and one of whom was there as she was writing a post-graduate thesis on homosexuality and religion. our flag and the card rested on the stall in front of our pew which was visible to anybody entering the Church. Although there was just the six of us, we knew that we were not alone. There was an inter-racial male couple (very cute!) standing behind and a sprinkling of several closet queens all over.

The momentous event happened as both Benni and I went up to receive communion. Again, I bore up the Pride flag and slung it over my shoulder with the card facing the front. Alex+ administered the bread without second thoughts while the chalice-bearer looked a bit hesitant before he passed the cup. The priest could have denied us communion there and then ("provided in the case of a grave and immediate scandal to the Congregation, the minister shall not admit such person", 1662 BCP).

After communion, we walked down the aisle showing our message to the people sitting in the nave. Some cringed at the words. A young Afro-Caribbean woman smiled at us. The most dramatic act was given by a young man in white shirt (and incidentally looking VERY gay) who literally squirmed. Most of the people were nonchalant, a tragedy of culture which allowed the bishops to spew all manner of nonsense at us. Kenneth was still outside and this time he was joined by another supporter Jason.

At the end of the service when the Chancel party process out of the Church, the card was made as visible as possible the departing crew. The choir was focussed on the hymnals, some stealing a few glances. One of the lay readers looked appalled. Ronald, master of ceremony and head of the servers' guild when I was an altar boy gave a queasy and uncomfortable look. There it is, not just some silly impersonal protester but one whom he knew. Alex+ hardly looked at us.

At the end of Matins (Morning Prayers) we stood outside the Cathedral. People looked at us. No one spoke to us. The remaining four of us (Benni, the two post-religion fellow-activists and yours truly) began our Mid-day liturgy soon afterwards which provided a curious spectacle to some. No one else joined us. There we affirmed our commitments towards social justice, cast out demons of prejudice and ignorance. The prayers took no longer than 15 minutes and we were off on our way for lunch.

Protesting is a very tiring thing to do and I'm still recovering from the effects of numbing my fear and nervousness during the demonstration. It still feel a bit weird having came out a about a hundred of strangers and friends in a single moment. It gets a bit disappointing when a number of queer Anglicans seem to have chosen to disassociate from us. When happens next, I do not know, but I certainly hope that people will see we are not a bunch of God-hating outsiders. Hopefully this will give courage to others and spur on acts of speaking out.