Malaysia has decided to take a big ol’ shit on the gays this spring, and it’s a double whammy.
The Southeast Asian nation has banned all LGBT characters from shows, and also pledged to allocate $32,600 toward reparative therapy in hopes of turning its gays into heterosexual breeders.
According to The Star Online:
The Information Department has banned shows featuring gay characters, Deputy Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Maglin Dennis D’Cruz confirmed.
He said the ban was effective immediately but would only start with state-owned TV and radio stations.
“If it means cancelling some of the shows, so be it,” he told The Star Friday, adding that the decision was to curb the “influence” of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community.
He also said the decision will be expanded to cover privately-owned stations as well as satellite TV providers.
As for foreign productions, he said the Censorship Board will remove episodes from running TV shows and bar movies with gay characters from being screened locally.
Say buh-bye to Glee and Modern Family, denizens of the Malay Kingdom.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
And depleting mainstream media of gay character isn’t all—elected officials want to turn their existing gays straight.
The Sun Daily says that Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin made some pretty ridiculous remarks at the launch of the “National Counseling, Education and Career Carnival,” including funding of ex-gay reparative therapy. Said Yassin, as if it were common sense:
“This includes counseling skills for those faced with sexuality problems which threatens the integrity of the family institution.
“The symptoms of sexual orientation disorder like LGBT, which was previously faced by the Western society are now faced in our society also. I believe that through an effective counseling approach, we will be able to curb this negative phenomenon from spreading in our community… For now [the allocated spending] is RM100,000 ($32,600). If it not enough, we can add more later…
“The skills to counsel the disabled people is important to help them live a normal life in the midst of challenges.”
And here I thought the Malaysian Prime Minister was all about ending child labor, not treating “the gay” like a negative contagion… and is this just a shitty translation, or did girlfriend just call us “disabled”? WTF!
jerry r
Um, you guys are aware that Malaysia is a majority Muslim country, right??
Of course they’re going to ban anything gay
Triple S
I’m so glad I live in a Western World. It’s such a shame that even now, countries like Australia, America and the rest of the First World Countries are still just not moving forward like they should. Australia is but a few kilometres away by comparison, but noooooo! Can’t do anything at all!
Let’s just leave the (truly) oppressed where they are to suffer. Super idea.
Callum
Time for the U.S. State Department to stop any and all funding to the country.
jason
Malaysia is a hole. Yet tourism to Malaysia is quite common. Stop touring there.
J
Callum,US does not give funds to Malaysia.Malaysia doesn’t need it.
I’m a gay Malaysian and I like this! It stops all those pretentious western wannabe Malaysians from exploiting homosexuality to make themselves look “cool” and “progressive”.
Uncle Mo
@J: Hoo boy, are you ripe for making full use of your 32 grand in therapy.
Houston Bill
Malaysia’s massive tourism ad campaign in Europe is “Malaysia..Truly Asia”. Yes, Iran and Saudi Arabia are in Asia too.
Hephaestion
It’s official. Malaysia is the stupidest country on earth.
Burn
Malaysia is NOT a godless world. Although there are majority Muslims, the others are Buddhist, Christians, Hindus, etc which believe in God. If the Malaysians are happy with such ruling, why do others care? The West like to influence on others and think what they do is right. They are the Big Bully. They invade other countries and impose their culture and ways on others. They are such a hypocrites.
Burn
Way to go Malaysia!
GBro
@Burn: Yeah, that whole, “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights,” really rubs the whole post-post-colonialism thing the wrong way, doesn’t it?
alfie
My malaysian ex-friends told me that it’s better for me to drink, party and have sex with women (which are against Islam), than to have sex with men. So this is not just about Homosexuality considered as sin..
Andy
@Burn: American foreign policy if fascist-lite, therefore it’s okay for us to be fascists against gays.
Makes sense. No!
jason
Malaysia is a shit dump. I hope the European gays organize a tourism boycott of Malaysia.
Spike
@Houston Bill: OMG OMG OMG, are there any Atlantis Cruises headed to Malaysia??? You must get the word out Bill!!!! Boycott Atlantis so they don’t go to Malaysia.
J Stratford
Oh man, its getting worse in Malaysian politics. You know what that means right?
It means that LGBT is getting headway in Malaysia, because of high profile cases like Anwar Ibrahim and the guy who married in the UK
Anyhow, the fact that gayness is seen as “cool” and “progressive” in Malaysia, as one negative commenter put it is a good thing. This government action taht tries to roll back progress is proof that it is real.
No what can we do to continue the progress? TV is out, movies are out. Many suggest boycotting tourism. The only option is for gay Malaysians to stand up for themselves. There’s lot of them and they are all moneyed… and cool… we’ll give them moral support but its time THEY took action. The world can only do so much without actual change being advocated by real gay cool progressive Malaysians
sheena
@J: i dont think ur malaysian gay boy…..i have malaysian gay friends and i was in malaysia and lgbt community is struggling for the ignorance of ur country
Billysees
It’ll take a while, but the good, meaningful and worthwhile attributes of Christianity that so visibly express themselves in western cultures will eventually subdue the world.
One day, the understanding that LGBT issues will be considered as “all things are lawful…all things are permissible” as revealed in the New Testament will prevail.
The work of the Holy Spirit is our friend. But it’ll take some time before that will be realized.
Patience….and observe His love of us.
the other Greg
Hmmm… notable difference in tone in the comments when it’s a story about an anti-gay Asian country instead of an anti-gay African or Caribbean country.
Pinoy
Come to my country the Philippines instead. Hey, we’re third world yes, but it’s more fun in the Philippines. Plus, us gay boys get to party endlessly. 🙂
Bipolar Bear
Guess that means they can’t show Will and Grace then, with all its gay content. Oh hang on a minute…
randy
$32,000 for therapy? I’ll take that money and set up a “gay therapy” office. It would be a great way to meet guys and start up a clandestine movement.
Orna.Mint
Dump that nation of ignorants, Gay tourists should come to the Philippines instead! Homosexuality is more fun in the Philippines! And yes, even more fun than Thailand!
the crustybastard
Paging Marcus Bachmann.
Oh well
Not surprising. Malaysia is an Islamic nation. So of course they are going to be against bisexuals, gay men, lesbians, and claim that it’s a choice or can be changed.
Daniel
J (no.5) — US doesn’t give funds to Malaysia? WTF? US development and economic aid is indeed witheld from Malaysia. Why? I suspect it has to do with the fact that Regional terroirst organizations are known to use Malaysia for planning and fund raising (at least that is what is documented in the congressional budget alloations). But Malaysia does in fact receive US $$$ from our government. Most notably it is directed to fight terrorism, military operations, and law enforcement. I just spent a week in KL with my partner. Loved the experience, but travels outside the big city indicate that Malaysia would greatly benefit from the Economic aid that we generously provide to other developing countries. Pinoy (No. 20) is right… men in the Philippines are hella hotter guys than most…
Erik
Another distant land where ignorance is king.
nineinchnail
Backward third world dictatorship. Enough said.
J
@sheena:
Sheena,I am a gay Malaysian.I was mistreated a lot by my peers,growing up.
I want the Malaysian gays to stand up for themselves.I don’t want Malaysian heteros doing it for us.You know why? Because I’m pretty sure that most of them are guilty of homophobia.And I have a MASSIVE problem with these assholes exploiting gays to make themselves look progressive etc etc.How dare they! That is just unacceptable,completely unacceptable!
Why would they want to stand up for us now? I’m not just talking about Malaysian heteros,but the ones in the western world too.It’s all bullshit! Tyler Clementi and gang commit suicide and suddenly they start caring.Fuck off!!!
Ramen
I’m with J, I don’t think Malaysia’s one of those US aligned countries.
I study Politics and I’ve spent a summer there working and I enjoyed it. The people are nice, being there was fun. Gay life was sort of an open secret. There were a lotta clubs and stuff in the city.
I think it’s the politicians. Election season’s coming for them and this is one way to gather votes of the largely conservative masses in the rural states. They’re not used to it, it’s not part of their culture and they’ve never been exposed. Doesn’t make them bad people.
Ricky
My family is originally from Malaysia and I’ve always wanted to take my partner to where my family grew up since I’ve never been there before. I’m always having second thoughts about it though *sigh*.
BlackRockRitual
I know that in many ways people think and like to claim that ‘Japan’ and ‘South Korea’ are “overrated” countries in Asia, just because they have more money or electronic goods and video games and the like.
But in many ways, they are not. Richer places in Asia like South Korea and Japan, may not have equal gay rights to many European countries. But they sure as heck don’t want to remove them from the entire tv. Women’s porn in Japan is dominated by exploiting fictional gay people and scenarios to titillate them. Television is full of crossdress for the “humor” or just “random fun”. Enough that I’m used to seeing loads of footage of Japanese TV on youtube full of commenters ignorantly proclaiming things like “what’s up with Japs and queers?” and things like that. Androgynous themes, crossdressing, and gay “yaoi” or bara themes have actually become a common Western complaint about the Japanese animation and video game industry(as many misogynist Western teens, object to playing as women, gays, crossdressers/transgenders, even even just androgynous guys. Just look at the Mass Effect 3 fiasco!). And South Korea have prominent pop singers like Harisu. And of course there’s Hong Seok cheon and many other LGBT folks. Needless to say, LGBT folks are very much a part of the “Korean wave”.
I hate to say it, but all the hype for Asian countries like Japan and Korea aren’t entirely off the mark. They’re a lot more forward that countries like Malaysia.
Jimbo
if there was a single good thing from the Malaysian government it is this!
the treatment i suggest is they employ some really hot prostitutes to fuck all these homo sons of bitches til they become straight!