Malaysiakini : In 2023, former Klang MP and one of the few genuine politicians in this country, Charles Santiago, said, “PAS has been targeting the LGBT community recently when there are serious issues it needs to deal with in Kelantan and Terengganu.

“For example, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat has expressed concern over the high number of child sex abuse cases, totalling 59, recorded in Kelantan in 2022.”

Now you will not see posters that propagate the hate of the child sexual abuse acts in Terengganu, Kelantan, or any other states that follow this LGBTQ+ hate strategy. Keep in mind that child sexual abuse and the way it is handled in Malaysia, for lack of a better word, is “sensitive”.

In 2016, when a Reuters report detailed how Malaysia allows child abuse to go unpunished, it briefly fuelled an outrage that was immediately doused by the corruption scandals that plagued the Najib Abdul Razak administration.

A couple of interesting points were made in the article that demonstrate how insidious the problem is. Defending the rather dubious practice of not publishing child sexual abuse data because it is protected under the Official Secrets Act, Ong Chin Lan, who was then the head of the Sexual, Women, and Children Investigation Division of the Royal Malaysia Police, said, “We don’t want people to misinterpret it.”

I get how data could be misinterpreted, but why would anyone want to misinterpret child sexual abuse data? On the other hand, is this a political issue? Another move to save face because of governmental policy, lack of enforcement, generally ill-defined laws, and a lack of empathy with child victims?

Protecting children from abusers

DAP’s Kashturi Patto wrote in 2016, “While I know her (Ong’s) heart is in the right place, by not revealing data on this type of crime, the issue remains largely unaddressed and will inadvertently contribute to the increase in the number of potential paedophiles and abusers. By also concealing information like this, it makes victims and victims’ families hesitate to make reports, thinking that the matter is taboo.”

Indeed, in a piece demanding urgent action for child protection reform after the Global Ikhwan Services & Business Holdings (GISBH) scandal, Dr Amar-Singh HSS and Briget Welsh wrote - “A vital part of improving administration is studies that look more carefully at child protection and do so professionally.”

“For too long, the issues of child protection have been overlooked, downplayed and even denied and covered up, as there has been resistance to addressing these serious social problems in Malaysian society. There needs to be independent studies on the scope of problems.”

In 2016, Al Jazeera reported on Malaysia’s child brides. The report is a litany of marriage as a defence against rape, an indictment of the fact that rape within marriage is not illegal and the reality that poverty plays a role when it comes to child marriages in Malaysia.

As Shareena Sheriff, programme manager at advocacy group Sisters in Islam, said, “Child marriage is actually exacerbating the abuse of the children by making it legal.”

She also highlighted the fact that politicians and religious personalities make statements advocating child marriages, which in turn makes it conducive so that those “who want to go down that road will feel that it’s perfectly all right to do so.”

In 2010, Sisters in Islam called for an end to child marriage. A passage from the press statement - “Any campaign to reduce the practice of child marriage in Muslim societies faces particular criticisms and challenges from conservative religious forces, as can be seen in the controversy over the two recent cases of child marriage in Kelantan.”

Child grooming on the rise

And of course, all this LGBTQ+ hate is coming at a time when grooming of minors by social media influencers is on the rise, according to Bukit Aman’s Sexual, Women, and Child Investigation Division principal assistant director Siti Kamsiah Hassan:

“Such cases are on the rise because these so-called idols or influential figures are now sprouting like mushrooms on social media platforms, compared to before.

“Not all influencers are just social media content creators. Teachers, artistes, athletes, or religious figures are also often idolised by the public.”

So, rational Malaysians have to ask themselves, why is the state and the religious class attacking the LGBTQ+ community instead of calling on the majority of Malaysians to hate child sexual abuse? Why is the religious state enabling hate against a minority community instead of protecting children? Why is the political class enabling the hate of a minority while enabling the proclivities of degenerates?

PSM Youth had to postpone its LGBTQ+ workshop because of safety concerns. Keep in mind that the state security apparatus, by curtailing the inclusive speech of PSM and enabling the hate speech of groups opposed to this event, is merely setting the foundation to sanction other events using national laws to protect racial and religious interests.

Today, it is the LGBTQ+ community, tomorrow it could be anything that pressure groups supportive of the state or outsourced groups deemed detrimental to the state or their paymasters.

Keep in mind that Section 505(c) of the Penal Code criminalises statements likely to incite tension between races or religions, which by precedent means anything the majority deems inciteful.

The Selangor Muslim Youth Movement (Abim) said, “In Malaysia, and particularly in Selangor, we must not succumb to the pressures of cultural liberalisation that seek to dismantle the civilisational foundations which have long shaped the identity of our nation.”

Indeed, Selangor Abim called on all segments of society “to unite in safeguarding the moral and spiritual integrity of this country against the threat of deviant ideologies disguised as human rights.” This is exactly the kind of American culture war rhetoric that you would see rather dumb Malaysians use when vilifying the LGBTQ+ community.

This is the problem with culture wars. It is meant to distract. And the state wants to make everyone complicit, and they are enabled by the rather dumb supporters of the imported American culture wars, who fail to understand that in a country like this, the demonisation of the LGBTQ+ community is merely the picking of low-hanging fruit.

Ultimately, the rights of minorities will be whittled away or erased because of the societal norms and religious values of the majority.