When Prime Minister Dr Mahathir warned in an interview with BBC radio that if British homosexual ministers "ever come here bringing their boyfriend(s) along, we will throw them out", we must take it that he was making a mere political statement to dramatise that this country would not, unlike the UK, accept homosexuals as cabinet ministers (in buttress of the earlier action against his deputy premier).

Whether such rhetoric will actually be translated into action remains to be seen.

[It was reported that Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed Britain's first openly gay cabinet minister after the Labor Party took power in 1997, making Chris Smith his culture secretary and also backed Agriculture Secretary Nick Brown, who confessed he was gay when his ex-lover threatened to sell his story to a tabloid newspaper].

Perhaps it is expected that the British government will be sensitive and not send any gay ministers in conduct of state affairs to Malaysia and hazard a diplomatic incidence. As Mahathir had said, "it is a difference in values", so Tony Blair could counter that whilst Malaysia, as an Islamic nation is entitled not to appoint gay ministers, he is not so bound, and this being the case, Malaysia could not reasonably stop his minister(s) from coming here in conduct strictly of state affairs.

And in aversion of a diplomatic row, we have a saving proviso in that they can come in as long as they don't bring their boyfriends along! (A rarefied distinction could be made here to distinguish between acceptance of a visitor of unacceptable sexual orientation and rejection of his unacceptable activities being carried out with boyfriends here).

This latest statement by the PM is regrettably bound to be seized by political hangers-on to further fuel the moral panic and hate campaign against homosexuals here for their own agenda.

Already there is an organisation called the "People's Voluntary Anti-Homosexual Movement" (Pasrah) dedicated to wiping out gays.

If we believe malaysiakini 's columnist, Dr Farish A Noor ('Reaching out - gays and Islam', July 9) that gays are an "actual lived reality" in our society, the hate campaign will only drive these scapegoats further into the shadows and margins so much that their invisibility will make the work of Marina Mahathir's Malaysian AIDS Council even more difficult to contain the HIV problem in their midst.

How will this affect the Multimedia Super Corridor project, if some of the top executives of the largest of American IT corporations are self-confessed gays?

What about concerts by international artists who are known gays - will their concerts not be allowed in this country?

Whilst the religious perspectives on this issue are clear as many religions are anti-gay, the constitutional, humanitarian and human rights issues are not that clear in our context.

First of all, the constitutional issue of where gay rights stand in relation to our recent stance of constitutional protection against discrimination based on sex only. Does sex here encompass sexual orientation? If discrimination against a person's sex is wrong, why is discrimination against his sexual orientation alright? If it were argued that homosexuality is against the order of nature whereas sex, whether one is born male or female, is predetermined beyond ones control, what if homosexuality is also predetermined genetically beyond one's control?

Where is our local pondan and transvestite placed - male, female, or androgynous? If androgynous, is he/she/it protected by the equality of gender clause? Are male homosexuals more deviant, and deserving of this hate campaign than (say) female lesbians? If it is against order of nature to have sex with one's own gender, is it also against the order of nature to practise celibacy and hate sex with any other person of whichever sex?

So many hard questions (in respect to which Sept 11 events offer no excuse for not addressing) for the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) to state its stand if it has the guts to do so for the gay community huddling in fear and terror within our midst.