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Written on February 20, 2010 by Christopher Ong

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New police reports lodged against Pastor Rony

(photo credits:A.J.)

Singapore – Fridae.com has reported that a new series of police reports have been lodged against Pastor Rony for offensive comments made about gay men and lesbians in his online video series Miracle TV.

Of the people who have lodged the police report, they notably include Singapore film-maker Royston Tan — director of acclaimed local movies such as 881 and Royston’s Shorts – and Sun Koh, the only Singapore film-maker to win the coveted Silver Hugo at the 2002 Chicago Film Festival for her short-film, The Secret Heaven.

The offending videos feature yet another series of interviews by Pastor Rony Tan, with an attendant of the Lighthouse Evangelism church, Cheryl Bachelor, who claims to have been “healed” from lesbian tendencies.

This spate of fresh police reports follows closely the recent videos of Pastor Rony interviewing an ‘ex-Buddhist’ Joseph Tan, which was presented in an offensive manner and portrayed Buddhism in an inaccurate light. The series of videos drew a strong response from Singaporeans, both Buddhist and Christians alike, prompting the Pastor to later publicly apologize and order for the videos to be removed.

Who should really, really be held responsible?
The Miracle TV interview series by Pastor Rony, although conducted within the confines of the church, should rightfully be considered as belonging to the public domain once the interviews are uploaded on the church’s website and become easily available to all with a mouseclick.

While not calling for Pastor Rony to change his personal beliefs – for, one should have the liberty to hold any sort of beliefs one wishes so long as they do not infringe about the liberty of others to do likewise, to run a Millian argument – many are suggesting that the videos promoting a skewed perspective of homosexuality be removed, for they may incite resentment or negative attitudes towards gay men and lesbians purely on the basis of their sexual tendencies.

The counter-argument runs thus: who are in fact, the intended audience of Pastor Rony’s Miracle TV series? The video interviews were originally conducted in the church, and it is right to claim that the videos belong to the public domain once they are uploaded onto the internet. However, who are the ones who would actually log on to the church’s website to watch the video interviews?

Think about it this way. There is surely a difference between the cases of Pastor Rony and the married couple who were recently charged in court for actively giving offending religious tracts to Muslims in Singapore.

For one, a person who goes with a loudhailer towards a Buddhist and say that his religion is wrong must surely be more culpable of inciting religious disharmony than one who does not.

To which I can ask a similar question of Buddhists and Taoists who were offended by the initial video interviews of Joseph Wee: do you not think that the person who disseminated the videos in Hardwarezone in the first place, should be equally if not more guilty for the ill-feelings that arise from the video?

Pastor Rony certainly did not entitle his interviews as the “Pastor Rony Blasts Buddhism” series. And admittedly, the video was provocatively named to not only induce views, but unfairly set the viewer on a certain course of interpretation of the contents of the video.

This perspective of the entire incident could be similarly transposed to the new police reports that were lodged against Pastor Rony.

If a person sieves through the online archives of Pastor Rony’s interviews on Miracle TV, hoping to look for an offending remark or statement just so he or she could give it the most uncharitable interpretation and decry that the videos illicit ill-will towards a certain segment of society, then one should rightly question the intentions of this person in the first place.

If anything, I believe that we should hold the people equally responsible for giving the videos a provocative title and spreading it in a way that incites resentment from its viewers – whether the videos were misrepresentations of another religion or gay men to even begin with.

Discussion: What do you think about this series of new police reports? Is it perhaps time we give Pastor Rony a break?

64109 Comments2010-02-20+03%3A40%3A17Christopher+Ong on "New police reports lodged against Pastor Rony"

Jonathan on Sat, 20th Feb 2010 4:38 am

Christopher: what do you mean by "the people" in this part of your sentence?
"I believe that we should hold the people equally responsible for giving the videos a provocative title and spreading it in a way that incites resentment from its viewers"

"The people" who aren't part of Rony's church are not one homogenous entity. You also suggest that the people who made the police reports are the ones who named the youtube videos as “Pastor Rony Blasts Buddhism". Are you misrepresenting the people who made a police report?

Also, a thorn by any other name is still a thorn: Would naming the videos anything else make them any less offensive? Would changing a painting's frame alter the painting? The content would still be there.

Chris Ong on Sat, 20th Feb 2010 5:38 am

Hey Jon,
Thanks for your feedback!
I meant to say the person who originally uploaded the video onto YouTube before giving it a provocative title. I believe that without the provocative title the videos would not have been met with such a strong reaction.
Yes of course the people who lodged the police reports are definitely not one and the same with the person who originally uploaded the videos.
I agree that a spade is spade no matter what you want to call it, but my gripe here is really with the people who actively try to find fault with Pastor Rony's online materials. I just think this case should be treated differently from, for instance, the incident of the couple who deliberately and actively distributed offensive religious tracts to Muslims in Singapore. In the latter, there exists an active intention to reach a specific target audience that most likely would find the materials offensive.
My two cents worth – thanks for your discussion.
Cheers,
Chris

Naru on Sun, 21st Feb 2010 11:54 am

well, i suppose if the person didn't upload the video, people wouldn't have taken notice of it.. let alone get angry over it.

the youtube vid that i watched didn't have that title. it' just pastor rony tan's view on buddhism or something along that line. even without the offending catchy title, any normal person would find that what rony tan said in his talk was very condescending and ridiculing buddhism and gay/lesbian. well, i guess what you don't know won't hurt you.. so if no one take the step to upload the video to catch the public's attention, this saga wouldn't have progressed so far. even so, badmouthing other religions, putting down people's sexual orientation, even if it is done behind close doors, it still isn't right… is it? especially since his audience is so huge, these ideas that's being implanted by rony tan will spread far and wide amongst the believers and they will definitely view buddhism and gay/lesbianism as what rony tan had intended.

all these wrong information will be passed on from person to person, insidiously, becoming something that might raise discord between christians and other populations

Eterna2 on Sun, 21st Feb 2010 4:27 pm

I just wish to highlight, I have no problem having pastors teaching that homosexuality is a sin, etc etc, as in accordance to their religious belief. My main issue is the sheer disinformation throughout the sermon to "justify" the "sin", and to demonize homosexuality.

Some example of disinformation are

1. Majority of the homosexual grew up in perfectly normal heterosexual families with no history of abuses. Hence it is factually wrong to make this assertion that homosexuality is a result of sexual abuse.

2. Paedophiles who target young boys are mostly heterosexual males (they are interested in female adults). It is a psychological problem, and got no relation to homosexuality (interest in adults of same gender). Hence it is factually inaccurate to correlate homosexuality with increased number of paedophiles.

3. Some people who have psychological problems are homosexuals. Homosexuality is neither the cause, nor a result of their psychological problems. Alternatively, some people became "homosexual" because of their psychological problems, but this does not necessarily mean ALL homosexuals are results of psychological problems (e.g. u feel sleepy because of ur flu, does not lead to feeling sleepy MUST be the result of having flu). Hence, it is factually inaccurate to assert that homosexuality is a psychological disease, when ALL major medical and scientific bodies reject this stand.

Hence, my main criticism is that Pastor Rony provided factually inaccurate information which leads to even more discrimination towards homosexual. And of course, a complete mis-education on homosexuality itself. People come out from the sermon knowing LESS than before they went it.

The Singapore Daily » Blog Archive » Daily SG: 22 Feb 2009 on Mon, 22nd Feb 2010 12:01 pm

[...] Rony Recants – The Magic Within: Going Beyond Faith and Harmony – The Kent Ridge Common: New police reports lodged against Pastor Rony – The Lycan Times: Rony Tan (II) – Kennethism: Pastor Rony Tan: “I’ve said nothing wrong, you [...]

tuesday on Tue, 23rd Feb 2010 2:37 am

Sure, if the public didn't know, they wouldn't have gotten angry. Yet it doesn't change the fact that he IS still inciting resentment towards other religions within his own congregation, brainwashing them with his scam-artist worthy presentations.

jun on Thu, 25th Feb 2010 8:20 am

just curious, do you have sources to confirm that

is disinformation? thanks!

Wakka on Thu, 25th Feb 2010 3:01 pm

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content...

"Results. Abuse was ruled out in 35 cases. Seventy-four children were allegedly abused by other children and teenagers less than 18 years old. In 9 cases, an offender could not be identified. In the remaining 269 cases, two offenders were identified as being gay or lesbian. In 82% of cases (222/269), the alleged offender was a heterosexual partner of a close relative of the child. Using the data from our study, the 95% confidence limits, of the risk children would identify recognizably homosexual adults as the potential abuser, are from 0% to 3.1%. These limits are within current estimates of the prevalence of homosexuality in the general community."

"Are homosexual adults in general sexually attracted to children and are preadolescent children at greater risk of molestation from homosexual adults than from heterosexual adults? There is no reason to believe so. The research to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. There appears to be practically no reportage of sexual molestation of girls by lesbian adults, and the adult male who sexually molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual (Groth & Gary, 1982, p. 147)."

Not much study were carried out on such topics, but generally, the result are different from what anti-gays would like.

Ang Peck hoon on Sun, 14th Mar 2010 6:26 pm

I have two questions.
1)Why is the Christian couple who passed offensive remarks against the Muslims jailed for 8 weeks, when our Rony boy just got off with a warning?
2)I am not for homosexuality, but is it not insulting to ask them to apply for a HDB flat with a monkey, a donkey or a dog?
What had happened to the 85 police reports?Can I trust the police any more if I should make a report and no action is taken?
May Singapore’s racial and religious harmonary not be destroyed because rony boy thinks he is representing God. I do not believe the Holy Spirit is with him when he said all that nonsense and It is certainly not with the audience who laughed at his silly jokes.Pony boy’s sudden want to repent and apologise is questionable. If he truly believes in what he believes he should stand by his beliefs and not quickly admit that he is wrong.

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