Prominent gay Karen singer Saw Yuri Galler is publicly challenging Karen Christian leaders over suspected homophobia. Yuri has accused the Yangon-based Karen music group Klo and Kweh, of which he is a member, of banning him from performing at a series of concerts in Thailand as part of their international fundraising tour.
Yuri, named after the Israeli spoon-bender, repeatedly contacted Klo and Kweh leaders for answers but got no reply. Close colleagues of the music group then informed him that he was being excluded because of his sexuality.
In response, Yuri appealed for help, starting a thread on the Karen Human Rights Group Facebook page:
“Almost two generations of our people have been denied their basic rights while being brought up in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. Our Karen young people do not get access to higher education and proper social benefits. We fight for it and we have been fighting and we will continue to fight for what our Karen people deserve. And as a Karen gay, I am going to fight for my rights to be protected and respected.”
He received a mixed reaction, with some comments indicative of fundamentalist Christian views on sexuality, such as this from Kathryn Nyo:
We won’t encourage or allow Karen people in homosexuality. All homosexual behaviour is sinful, regardless of the nature of the relationship. Homosexuality is a chosen, unnatural, abnormal, changeable, and perverted lifestyle, which is hated by God (sic).
Accusations of discrimination against Klo and Kweh then reached public prominence through an April 29 article in Irrawaddy Magazine’s Burmese language section.
The piece quoted popular Burmese author Nu Nu Ye Inwa, who spoke out in support of Yuri. She told the Irrawaddy that it would be good for homosexuals if society accepts them as women, because they have a feminine heart, think like women, and cannot be changed.
Nu Nu Ye has been connected to gay issues because her 2008 novel Smile as they Bow, shortlisted for the Man Asia Literary Prize, dealt with issues of gender and sexuality.
The Irrawaddy article also led to a new discussion where arguments for and against homophobic discrimination are being played out.
Yuri, an active Christian, believes he can reconcile his ethnicity, sexuality and religion without contradiction. He blames the homophobia directed against him on particular conservative interpretations of the bible that need to be challenged, and he sees this as part of a broader fight that Karen people need to be confronted with as part of their struggle:
To make Karen understand sexual diversity and to make the community tolerant of different sexualities will take a long time. Conservative Christianity is powerful and entrenched in Karen society, so it will be very hard to change. Now I just want to stand up and start fighting for my rights and the rights of other Karen gays. I know so many Karen gays who are in the closet. This is because people do not trust themselves. If I didn’t believe myself and listen to my heart I would have stayed in the closet.
Yuri also hopes that his outspokenness can help other gay Karen come out. He has already received emails of support from some closeted Karen friends and members of a social networking site.
It’s a painful fight though. Yuri’s public challenge to Klo and Kweh has resulted in his mother being expelled from her church in Yangon. She was previously a member of the church committee.
Klo and Kweh is headed by Dr. Yaha Lay Lay La, a Yangon-based pastor and a Professor of Theology at the Karen Baptist Theological Seminary. He received a Doctor of Ministry at the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in the USA.
Dr. Yaha Lay Lay La, when contacted for this post, declined to respond to Yuri’s accusation, only saying that “as a spiritual person, I’m not going to comment but I believe that God will reveal the truth.”
Klo and Kweh were founded in 2001 with the aim to maintain, use and promote Karen culture through music. They mix traditional S’gaw Karen music with modern genres and have a strong following in Burma and the diaspora. Yuri has been a member of Klo and Kweh since their establishment. He was previously a performer on the government-run network MRTV-3.
Homophobia has remained publically unchallenged in Burmese Karen society until now. Ethnic identity is part of the Karen struggle for self-determination. However, battles over what it means to be ‘Karen’ has silenced gender and sexual minorities. We hope that Yuri’s challenge can support, in some way, the opening up of Karen identity so it can be a more inclusive term for diverse and multi-layered identities.
(Yuri was previously featured in a New Mandala post here)
People of “the book” spend too much energy on their prejudices. I wonder if they have properly read and understood the key message delivered by their prophets. A “non book” believer like me can tell it Straight that their language is all about love, not hatred or discrimination. I am a heterosexual who have several homosexual close friends. I can speak from experience that, apart from our slightly different life style, there isn’t much that divided the life of heterosexual from that of homosexual: like-minded individuals attract to one another as we share common values, norms, and priorities in life. Liberty, democracy, equal opportunities, fair and open competition – these issues I care about are equally shared by my gay friends. Distinguishing the “us” and “them” on a basis of people’s sexual orientation is, to me, a human folly. Please note that this is a discrimination of the worst kind.
In regard to Yuri, he needs to be congratulated. The man has taken a step beyond well known gays in Thailand. Thai gay activists don’t campaign to this extent. I don’t remember hearing a gay public figure claiming the “political rights” of his gender (and the rights of minorities in getting social welfare). I hope the homosexual community of Thailand will one day send their own representative to Parliament. Democracy is just an empty word if you people not make it germane and meaningful to your life. So, in short, well done Yuri. Go for it boy.
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As a homosexual myself I find the notion that people need to “come out” and in particular that there is such a person as a “Christian homosexual” bizarre. I have always behaved perfectly openly but on the basis of “never apologise, never explain”. My brothers introduced their girlfriends at the time without any need to add “and I’m getting my leg over”; I did the same with any boyfriend and essentially dared people to ask. Of course they never did.
I spent three years at university studying theology with the intention of entering the Anglican priesthood; by the time I graduated I had come to the conclusion that on the balance of probabilities God does not exist and in any event is a hypothesis I can live my life without. While I understand that some homosexual people will come to a different conclusion, in my opinion it is because they have a need to belong and are in denial (ie. failing to acknowledge Buddhism’s Second Noble Truth) that being homsexual is a liberating experience that gives a truly different perspective of the world to those who dare to be other.
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“The piece quoted popular Burmese author Nu Nu Ye Inwa, who spoke out in support of Yuri. She told the Irrawaddy that it would be good for homosexuals if society accepts them as women, because they have a feminine heart, think like women, and cannot be changed.” This is deeply offensive, the product of very limited education. Gays are males who are attracted to other males. As in all other societies, the qualities which are inherent in their personalities run the whole range of the continuum between ‘macho/masculine’ & ‘feminine’, just as they do with heterosexual males. The transgender thing is an entirely different issue. Unfortunately, the Nu Nu view is one that is common in several SEA countries, including Thailand, & it is the cause of a great deal of unhappiness, as well as huge numbers of dishonest marriages & gender reassignments that should never have happened.
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great article Violet and Dave. thanks for posting.
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Christians bringing their intolerance to northern Thailand and Burma. Not too surprising. Vulnerable people make easy targets for these cultural terrorists. And Christian indoctrination guarantees that the hill tribes will be unable to assimilate into larger society.
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Funny, those intolerant Christians have frequently been working assimilation of the hill tribes, even if the hill tribes didn’t necessarily want it.
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In addendum: the only Thai I take seriously in terms of thinking happens to be gay. His name is Apichartpong. He makes film. Thailand should be proud of him.
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“Funny, those intolerant Christians have frequently been working assimilation of the hill tribes, even if the hill tribes didn’t necessarily want it.”
Please provide some example. The Karen are a majority-Buddhist tribe with several tribal divisions. Christianity was introduced into the Karen by British and American colonialists..both indirectly (through the Mon during British colonial wars and occupation) and directly (American Baptist Mission). By converting people to Christianity, you CREATE refugees and destroy native cultures.
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Gene,
Here’s one example. The Thai public school in Mae Sariang was originally a Karen private school run by the Karen Baptist Church in Mae Sariang. The church in Mae Sariang was started by a Karen Baptist missionary from Burma. The school taught English, Karen (Skaw), Burmese and Thai. The original Thai teacher was a Karen, but he knew Northern Thai, not Central Thai, so he was replaced by another Karen who could read, write and speak Central Thai. This was around 1910 when Mae Sariang’s connections to Central Thailand were pretty thin at best, so it is interesting to note that they specifically wanted Central Thai to be taught. The school was also open to non-Karens, including the local Thais, who were all Buddhists, so we have a non-Thai ethnic and religious minority teaching the dominant dialect to Thais speaking a regional dialect. Everything went pretty well until the Japanese took over in the 1940s. The Thai government took the school over after the war.
Could you provide an example of Christianity being introduced to the Karens by the Mon? I thought it came pretty directly from Judson and his Karen convert whose name escapes me right now.
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Don’t fool yourselves, God will judge and it is clear that people stubburnly practicing homosexuality will not enter His kingdom. Those of us who belong to Him also have a responsibility from our side to eliminate what stands between us and Him. In the Bible God tells us that if it is an eye, we must plug it out, if an arm, chop it off. It is better to get crippled in heaven than to die forever – the second death.
P.s.
1) I only tell what God already revealed in His Word.
2) I am suffering from SSA and heavily so that I still have nasty encounters with homosexuality, but I’m turning away and reach out for something of everlasting value. I didn’t earn everlasting life by avoiding homosexuality (or any other sin for that matter), Jesus Christ gave it to me and to all of you who belong to Him and with this faith He gave to us, we have the power to turn away from any sin.
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