From:New York Times
By J. DAVID GOODMAN and LIZ GOOCH
Published: October 18, 2011
“I’m nobody here,” he said in New York, where same-sex marriage became legal in June, “but this marriage could have a global impact.”
While prosecutions in Malaysia under the sodomy law are rare, they are not unheard of. The leader of the country’s political opposition, Anwar Ibrahim, is facing sodomy charges for the second time in what he has called a politically motivated trial.
Advocates for gay rights say that even if such legal threats are remote, many Malaysians remain afraid to come out publicly for fear of religious condemnation, choosing instead to survive in a conservative society by remaining in the shadows.
But in recent years, Mr. Ngeo, 41, and others have encouraged gay Malaysians to let a little more light seep in, tentatively pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable.
One group, Sexuality Merdeka, created an annual festival in 2008 celebrating sexuality in all its forms. Last year, it encouraged Malaysians to post videos online proclaiming their sexuality, in a campaign modeled on the American “It Gets Better” video project combating the bullying of gays. The organization received 15 submissions, but posted only 5 before stopping because of a backlash that included death threats.
For his part, Mr. Ngeo has used his platform — he is a well-known Chinese-language writer and newspaper columnist in Malaysia — to push for greater rights by shining a spotlight on his own relationship. He came out publicly in a memoir in 2006, and has traveled to Kuala Lumpur several times with his partner of two years, Phineas Newborn III.
Even the date of their marriage at the City Clerk’s office was chosen to draw attention. They were married by a justice of the peace on Aug. 31, the Malaysian independence day.
Government officials and conservative newspapers in Malaysia appeared happy to respond, lashing out at Mr. Ngeo when the wedding plans were announced. “Day by day, we see various attempts to destroy our value system and Pastor Ou is doing it in the open,” a columnist wrote in the conservative daily, Utusan Malaysia, referring to Mr. Ngeo by his Chinese name, Ou Yang Weng Feng.
The couple plan to celebrate their marriage in the winter with a large banquet at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, a move likely to further inflame conservative sentiment in the country.
Of course, some gay people live openly in Malaysia, especially in Kuala Lumpur and other cities. In an interview in New York, where he now lives, Mr. Ngeo said he had noticed changes in the country and counted it as a success that newspapers in Malaysia were reporting on homosexuality when they reported about him. “At least now they articulate the word ‘homosexual’ in the newspaper,” he said. “Before they just ignored it.”
He has been working with the Metropolitan Community Church, a global organization with congregations in 23 countries that welcome lesbian, gay and transgender worshipers. Along with a former Baptist minister, the Rev. Joe Pang, he has been developing a safe gathering place in Kuala Lumpur. Christians make up about 9 percent of the Malaysian population, where the right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the country’s Constitution, though religious tensions have occasionally flared.
Mr. Pang, who leads the community church’s Malaysian congregation, was forced to resign from the Baptist Church after he declared his sexuality. In August, he led the small Malaysian congregation, with a few dozen people, in the mezzanine of a suburban Kuala Lumpur cafe. He was joined on this occasion by Mr. Ngeo, who was in town and preached about his own coming out, scarcely drawing breath as he jumped seamlessly between English and Chinese. “I was so afraid of myself,” he said.
Raised a fundamentalist Christian in Kuala Lumpur, Mr. Ngeo married a woman in Malaysia and moved with her to the United States in the late 1990s before telling her about his sexuality in 2002. “I said to her, ‘I think I’m gay,’ ” he said. “And she said, ‘Yes, I think you are.’ ”
But while Mr. Newborn, a Broadway producer, found support from his family, Mr. Ngeo struggled to come out at home. It was only with the publication of his memoir that he revealed his sexuality to his family, calling his mother a week before it appeared in stores to tell her. (His father died when he was 13.)
Such public declarations of homosexuality are rare in Malaysia — Mr. Ngeo is believed to be the most prominent person to do so — and can elicit bitterness. Some in the Malaysian gay community who live under the radar have criticized Mr. Ngeo for disturbing their fragile peace from the security of his apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
He rejects the criticism, saying that the only way to gain rights is to fight for them in public. “If we want changes in Malaysia, we have to pay the price,” he said.
Azwan Ismail has. A 33-year-old Malay engineer who was raised Muslim, Mr. Ismail posted a video online in December as part of the coming-out campaign by Sexuality Merdeka, but received so many death threats that he was forced to take it down. Mr. Ismail said that he expected a negative reaction to the video, titled “I’m Gay, I’m Okay,” but that he was taken aback by the violent threats.
“To that extent it was a surprise, and shocking and quite frightening,” Mr. Ismail said.
As the service in Kuala Lumpur ended, Mr. Pang introduced a newcomer to the gathering of mostly men, both gay and straight, who ranged in age from 20 to 55. None were willing to share their names. Some members are married with children and have not yet come out.
They said they told their wives that they were meeting friends when they went to the Sunday meetings, Mr. Pang said, adding, “Their whole lives, they only can be themselves for two hours.”
By J. DAVID GOODMAN and LIZ GOOCH
Published: October 18, 2011
 |
| The Rev. Boon Lin Ngeo at a service in Kuala Lumpur, where he has been criticized by government officials and homosexuals. |
The Rev. Boon Lin Ngeo, a Malaysian Protestant pastor whose message of tolerance for homosexuals has drawn fire in his country, sat with his male partner on a lime-green sofa inside the Office of the City Clerk in New York on a late summer day, where they waited their turn to be married.
The banality of the scene — the plastic-sealed bouquets, the bureaucratic march of couples through the office — masked the roiling effect that Mr. Ngeo’s nuptials have had in Malaysia, where Muslims are a majority and sodomy, even among consenting adults, remains a crime punishable by as many as 20 years in prison.
The banality of the scene — the plastic-sealed bouquets, the bureaucratic march of couples through the office — masked the roiling effect that Mr. Ngeo’s nuptials have had in Malaysia, where Muslims are a majority and sodomy, even among consenting adults, remains a crime punishable by as many as 20 years in prison.
“I’m nobody here,” he said in New York, where same-sex marriage became legal in June, “but this marriage could have a global impact.”
While prosecutions in Malaysia under the sodomy law are rare, they are not unheard of. The leader of the country’s political opposition, Anwar Ibrahim, is facing sodomy charges for the second time in what he has called a politically motivated trial.
Advocates for gay rights say that even if such legal threats are remote, many Malaysians remain afraid to come out publicly for fear of religious condemnation, choosing instead to survive in a conservative society by remaining in the shadows.
But in recent years, Mr. Ngeo, 41, and others have encouraged gay Malaysians to let a little more light seep in, tentatively pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable.
One group, Sexuality Merdeka, created an annual festival in 2008 celebrating sexuality in all its forms. Last year, it encouraged Malaysians to post videos online proclaiming their sexuality, in a campaign modeled on the American “It Gets Better” video project combating the bullying of gays. The organization received 15 submissions, but posted only 5 before stopping because of a backlash that included death threats.
For his part, Mr. Ngeo has used his platform — he is a well-known Chinese-language writer and newspaper columnist in Malaysia — to push for greater rights by shining a spotlight on his own relationship. He came out publicly in a memoir in 2006, and has traveled to Kuala Lumpur several times with his partner of two years, Phineas Newborn III.
Even the date of their marriage at the City Clerk’s office was chosen to draw attention. They were married by a justice of the peace on Aug. 31, the Malaysian independence day.
Government officials and conservative newspapers in Malaysia appeared happy to respond, lashing out at Mr. Ngeo when the wedding plans were announced. “Day by day, we see various attempts to destroy our value system and Pastor Ou is doing it in the open,” a columnist wrote in the conservative daily, Utusan Malaysia, referring to Mr. Ngeo by his Chinese name, Ou Yang Weng Feng.
The couple plan to celebrate their marriage in the winter with a large banquet at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, a move likely to further inflame conservative sentiment in the country.
Of course, some gay people live openly in Malaysia, especially in Kuala Lumpur and other cities. In an interview in New York, where he now lives, Mr. Ngeo said he had noticed changes in the country and counted it as a success that newspapers in Malaysia were reporting on homosexuality when they reported about him. “At least now they articulate the word ‘homosexual’ in the newspaper,” he said. “Before they just ignored it.”
He has been working with the Metropolitan Community Church, a global organization with congregations in 23 countries that welcome lesbian, gay and transgender worshipers. Along with a former Baptist minister, the Rev. Joe Pang, he has been developing a safe gathering place in Kuala Lumpur. Christians make up about 9 percent of the Malaysian population, where the right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the country’s Constitution, though religious tensions have occasionally flared.
Mr. Pang, who leads the community church’s Malaysian congregation, was forced to resign from the Baptist Church after he declared his sexuality. In August, he led the small Malaysian congregation, with a few dozen people, in the mezzanine of a suburban Kuala Lumpur cafe. He was joined on this occasion by Mr. Ngeo, who was in town and preached about his own coming out, scarcely drawing breath as he jumped seamlessly between English and Chinese. “I was so afraid of myself,” he said.
Raised a fundamentalist Christian in Kuala Lumpur, Mr. Ngeo married a woman in Malaysia and moved with her to the United States in the late 1990s before telling her about his sexuality in 2002. “I said to her, ‘I think I’m gay,’ ” he said. “And she said, ‘Yes, I think you are.’ ”
But while Mr. Newborn, a Broadway producer, found support from his family, Mr. Ngeo struggled to come out at home. It was only with the publication of his memoir that he revealed his sexuality to his family, calling his mother a week before it appeared in stores to tell her. (His father died when he was 13.)
Such public declarations of homosexuality are rare in Malaysia — Mr. Ngeo is believed to be the most prominent person to do so — and can elicit bitterness. Some in the Malaysian gay community who live under the radar have criticized Mr. Ngeo for disturbing their fragile peace from the security of his apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
He rejects the criticism, saying that the only way to gain rights is to fight for them in public. “If we want changes in Malaysia, we have to pay the price,” he said.
Azwan Ismail has. A 33-year-old Malay engineer who was raised Muslim, Mr. Ismail posted a video online in December as part of the coming-out campaign by Sexuality Merdeka, but received so many death threats that he was forced to take it down. Mr. Ismail said that he expected a negative reaction to the video, titled “I’m Gay, I’m Okay,” but that he was taken aback by the violent threats.
“To that extent it was a surprise, and shocking and quite frightening,” Mr. Ismail said.
As the service in Kuala Lumpur ended, Mr. Pang introduced a newcomer to the gathering of mostly men, both gay and straight, who ranged in age from 20 to 55. None were willing to share their names. Some members are married with children and have not yet come out.
They said they told their wives that they were meeting friends when they went to the Sunday meetings, Mr. Pang said, adding, “Their whole lives, they only can be themselves for two hours.”
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