Malaysia’s only openly gay pastor is urging homosexuals in the mainly Muslim country to “keep coming out” to help battle homophobia, as he gets set to tie the knot with his US partner.
Reverend Ouyang Wen Feng (歐陽文風) is a highly controversial figure who faced outrage and threats when he opened in 2007 the first gay-friendly church in conservative Malaysia, where sexual identity is a hot-button topic.
Homosexuality, still a crime punishable by 20 years in jail under Malaysian laws banning sodomy, remains taboo across the racial and religious spectrum in Malaysia, which is home to large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.
However, Ouyang, a journalist-turned-pastor, said gay men and women should speak out to “break the vicious cycle” and help fight misunderstandings about the gay community.
“When society discriminates against gay people, you only push gay people into the closet,” he said in an interview last week on a visit to Hong Kong to launch a new book on homosexuality and Christianity.
“When gay people stay in the closet, people don’t know what is gay or homosexuality and because of ignorance they keep discriminating and that will perpetuate prejudice,” the outspoken 41-year-old said.
“Gay people cannot just blame straight people for not understanding us,” he said.
Ouyang, wearing a flesh-colored top with a crucifix and tattoos on his shoulder and arm, called on gay Malaysians to show their “true faces and tell them who we are.”
“Gay people should keep coming out and straight people who are okay with homosexuals should also come out to say publicly that being gay is okay — ‘I’m okay with my gay friends,’” he said.
Ouyang’s own “coming out” took place in 2006 when he published the story of his decision to make public his sexual orientation, after a nine-year marriage to his now ex-wife, whom he described as an “angel.”
“She encouraged me to come out. She asked for a divorce, and this is the biggest gift she could ever give me, she literally set me free. I owe her big time,” said the pastor, who grew up in a conservative Christian family.
Ouyang now lives in the US, where he is pursuing his doctoral degree in theology, while teaching sociology at a college and works as a staff pastor.
However, he regularly returns to Malaysia and other parts of Asia to promote awareness of homosexuality. Also a prolific writer, he has published 23 books, about half delving into gay-related themes.
Ouyang said the church he co-founded, which has been operating quietly in suburban Kuala Lumpur, is “growing and developing” and continues to draw gay Christians for Sunday services and bible studies.
“I am not promoting gay culture. I am promoting honesty, love and justice,” he said, in response to the government’s stance that it would not allow the church to run officially and religious leaders’ claims it would encourage homosexuality.
Ouyang has previously said the church — which also embraces bisexual, transsexual and heterosexual people — would help the gay community know they are “not alone in fighting the battle.”
However, influential Malaysian religious figures remain vehemently opposed to the growing prominence of the country’s gay community, with a vocal Islamic cleric last year saying homosexuality was “going to destroy the world.”
Authorities periodically raid gay-friendly bars or massage parlors, leaving some with a constant fear of persecution, while a prominent religious body in 2008 issued a fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, against lesbian sex.
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is currently on trial accused of sodomizing a former aide, a charge he has repeatedly dismissed as trumped-up and designed to prevent him from taking power.
Meanwhile Ouyang is set to wed his partner, an African-American Broadway musical producer, after the latter popped the question on June 26 — two days after New York City legalized same-sex marriages.
“It was also the day of our two-year anniversary,” the pastor said.
“He went to the church and he wrote a song for me. He proposed at the end of the song in public,” he smiled, saying the wedding date has yet to be set but the couple are planning to hold a wedding ceremony in the US and in Malaysia.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion