For family, friends, and love: Discourses of love in Christianity and advocacy in Singapore

Vincent Pak
Mie Hiramoto

Presenter Title/Affiliation

National University of Singapore

Start Date

22-5-2021 4:45 PM

Event Name

Panel discussion

Panel Number

16

Panel Chair Name

Ila Nagar

Zoom URL to Join

https://ciis.zoom.us/j/99915476674

Zoom Meeting ID

999 1547 6674

Abstract

Pinkdot is Singapore’s annual LGBTQ pride event with over 10 years of history. Over the course of its operations, it has successfully made visible and raised awareness for LGBTQ people and their sociopolitical rights. However, there has always been dissident opinions against the LGBTQ community from political and/or religious parties. One of them is a newly established Christian ministry, TrueLove. While Pinkdot’s mission is to call for greater inclusivity of LGBTQ individuals by accepting non-heteronormative love, TrueLove focuses on relabelling gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as struggling with same sex attraction, and coaxing them towards a more godly life that does not include pursuing their homosexual desires.

We have been investigating how these two opposing groups try to reason their views in discourses of love in their websites and promotional materials such as videos, blog posts, and campaign posters. The two parties are similar in how their websites are well maintained with content regarding sexuality and love, e.g., For family, for friends, for love (Pinkdot) and True love never gives up (TrueLove). Although they position the idea of love in a similar manner by appealing to their audiences’ affects, their agendas are completely polarized. As a result, these materials function as the center of multiple public debates on politics, religion, and sexuality.

We employ Peterson’s (2016) approach to homophobic discourse analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics as well as Goffman’s (1974) work on frame analysis as methodological tools to investigate the ideologies that accompany the two organizations’ multimodal materials about treatment of queer Singaporeans. As part of a larger study, this presentation shows a comparative study on both organizations’ discourses of love found in their promotional videos to understand how love and desire is linguistically constructed. Two individuals with a strikingly similar background, Pauline (Pinkdot 2016) and Tryphena (TrueLove 2019), were selected for analysis. Both are pastors and have identified as a lesbian woman; they talk about their experiences regarding homosexuality, love, and desire. Nonetheless, the findings show that the fundamental definition of love that they use to justify their positions towards homosexuality is nuanced in their presentations.

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May 22nd, 4:45 PM May 22nd, 5:15 PM

For family, friends, and love: Discourses of love in Christianity and advocacy in Singapore

Pinkdot is Singapore’s annual LGBTQ pride event with over 10 years of history. Over the course of its operations, it has successfully made visible and raised awareness for LGBTQ people and their sociopolitical rights. However, there has always been dissident opinions against the LGBTQ community from political and/or religious parties. One of them is a newly established Christian ministry, TrueLove. While Pinkdot’s mission is to call for greater inclusivity of LGBTQ individuals by accepting non-heteronormative love, TrueLove focuses on relabelling gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as struggling with same sex attraction, and coaxing them towards a more godly life that does not include pursuing their homosexual desires.

We have been investigating how these two opposing groups try to reason their views in discourses of love in their websites and promotional materials such as videos, blog posts, and campaign posters. The two parties are similar in how their websites are well maintained with content regarding sexuality and love, e.g., For family, for friends, for love (Pinkdot) and True love never gives up (TrueLove). Although they position the idea of love in a similar manner by appealing to their audiences’ affects, their agendas are completely polarized. As a result, these materials function as the center of multiple public debates on politics, religion, and sexuality.

We employ Peterson’s (2016) approach to homophobic discourse analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics as well as Goffman’s (1974) work on frame analysis as methodological tools to investigate the ideologies that accompany the two organizations’ multimodal materials about treatment of queer Singaporeans. As part of a larger study, this presentation shows a comparative study on both organizations’ discourses of love found in their promotional videos to understand how love and desire is linguistically constructed. Two individuals with a strikingly similar background, Pauline (Pinkdot 2016) and Tryphena (TrueLove 2019), were selected for analysis. Both are pastors and have identified as a lesbian woman; they talk about their experiences regarding homosexuality, love, and desire. Nonetheless, the findings show that the fundamental definition of love that they use to justify their positions towards homosexuality is nuanced in their presentations.

https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/saturday/35