COMMENT It is almost a cliché to say that one needs to learn from history, and that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This saying, although it rings true, has yet to be grasped by many people.

Even though we have lived in the 21st century, many people fail to possess the enlightenment mentality that underlies the rise of the modern world.

Many religious people tend to claim that their religious beliefs are scientific and reasonable, and yet, ironically, they do not respect scientific research.

Some of them even are willing to sacrifice reason and rationality in order to hold on to age-old beliefs or traditions that have proven to be unreasonable and non-scientific.

Religious people who are heterosexists and homophobes are of this ilk.

Outright discrimination

Contrary to what they say about their religions as being reasonable, and scientific, and in spite of their highly celebrated values of love and justice, what they exhibit when they attack homosexuals is nothing less than acute hatred, and callous, unsympathetic, and groundless accusations, and outright discrimination.

Many of them even condemn all homosexuals as immoral and wrong simply by imposing their religious beliefs on others, without offering any shred of scientific evidence or tangible facts.

Even though the American Psychiatric Association voted in 1973 to remove homosexuality from its official list of mental illness, and the American Psychological Association followed suit a year later, many religious fundamentalists still continue to stigmatise gay people and accuse them of being sick, against nature and immoral.

What they have done to bolster their claim is simply to appeal to their religious texts. What they have said about homosexuality, if not extracted from their religious texts, is based on prejudicial stereotypes, rather than facts. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in developing countries.

Have these religious fundamentalists and heterosexists learned anything significant from history?

Hardly. Many have forgotten how those who were left handed had been treated in the west and what Christian fundamentalists and biblical literalists had said about them.

Left handed

Those who were left handed were viewed as abnormal and inferior. The English word "sinister" comes from the latin word "sinistra," which originally meant "left," and which assumed an evil nature.

Some Christians even tried to justify the discrimination by appealing to the Bible, because the Bible claimed to have at least twenty-five unfavorable references to the left hand, with the most popular one, perhaps, being found in the Matthew's Gospel 25:31-41, where Jesus says, "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' ... Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' "

Hardly anyone today would believe that those who are left handed are evil, inferior, or against nature, even though most people are right handed.

I suspect that many Christians have forgotten how the Bible was used to justify discrimination and persecution of those who were left handed.

To them, perhaps, those Christians in the past were, at best ridiculous. Yet, they fail to see that they are not much different from those ridiculous Christians when they quote the Bible to oppose homosexuality. They fail to see that their line of argument against homosexuality is exactly the same as that of the Christians who argued against those who were left handed, namely "because the Bible tells me so" or "it is in the Bible."

Thus, one should not be surprised that the Church and many Christians used to oppose to the abolishment of slavery vehemently; their reason was simply because the institution of slavery was endorsed by God in the Bible; Jesus and Paul never said slavery was evil or that it should be abolished.

As an ordained Christian minister, I have to say that it is very sad to see many Malaysian Christians thinking in this way.

Sexual orientation

Much scientific research has shown that homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is nothing more than a sexual orientation, and that homosexuals are just as sane and normal as heterosexuals. Sexual orientation is not chosen but imbued by nature.

Still many choose to ignore this research. And despite the many homosexuals the world over who have taken the courageous step of coming out, often the risk of their lives and their well being, many Christians who claim to love all people continue to ignore these facts and persist in condemning homosexuals for have "chosen" their sexual orientation.

Can you imagine telling someone that your favorite color is blue, only to hear them insist that "No, you are wrong, your favorite color is red, you really do not like blue."?

In 2007, the world finally discovered the gene most closely linked to left-handedness.

It was named LRRTM1. Did people begin to change their views about left-handedness in 2007? Or had most of us already used our common sense, and looked at simple, plain facts, and already rejected the concept of left-handedness as being as weird or evil, long before the gene was found and named in 2007? Have we learned anything from history?

REV O YOUNG is an ordained Christian minister. He holds two masters degrees in sociology and theology. He has published 20 books on sociology, theology and sexuality.