News

By Peter J. Smith

NEW YORK, July 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A professor from the National University of Singapore has cancelled her plans to teach law courses on human rights at New York University, citing the “atmosphere of hostility” and “ireful campaign” against her over her legal position on homosexuality. She said that the opposition to her views has aroused in her colleagues “serious concerns about my safety and well-being.”

Dr. Thio Li-ann, a Christian academic and former Member of Parliament in Singapore, had been invited by NYU as a Global Visiting Professor to teach students, offering two classes on “Human Rights in Asia” and “Constitutionalism in Asia” starting in the Fall 2009 semester. But a campus homosexual activist group, NYU OUTLaw, initiated a hue-and-cry against Thio for the professor's description of homosexuality as “contrary to biological design and immoral” in a speech she had given to the Singapore Parliament back in 2007. Over 800 NYU students signed a petition protesting Thio's appointment to the Hauser Global Law Program, because she does not accept homosexual expression as a human right.

Thio, however, withdrew from the program, explaining in a July 22 letter sent to NYU Law Dean Richard Revesz that she no longer believed an atmosphere of academic tolerance conducive to learning remained at NYU, and wished to relieve him and NYU of the pressure to rescind her invitation.

Revesz had informed students that Thio's position was “inimical to the law school's position against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” He said the law department was unaware of her 2007 speech against decriminalizing sodomy at the time they hired her. Nevertheless Revesz stated that the university supported her for the sake of academic freedom.
 
“As an Asian woman whose legal training has spanned the finest institutions in both East and West, I believe I would have something of value to offer your students,” Thio wrote. “However, the conditions no longer exist to proceed with the visit, given the animus fuelled by irresponsible misrepresentation/distortions and/or concerted invective from certain parties. Friends and colleagues have also expressed serious concerns about my safety and well-being.”

“It has become clear,” wrote Thio, “that the fraught atmosphere of hostility towards me is inimical to an effective teaching and learning environment.”

“As an invited guest, I do not seek controversy nor do I think it appropriate to visit an institution if my presence is unwelcome or prey to politicised manipulation, with its disruptive effects,” Thio concluded. “It defeats the purpose of educational exchange and dialogue, would be counter-productive, and enervating to all concerned parties.”

A current faculty-member of the National University of Singapore, Thio had gained the ire of homosexualist activists and the praise of pro-family advocates in 2007 after defending Section 377A of the country's penal code, which criminalizes sodomy, although the statute is rarely enforced. Thio told fellow Parliamentarians that the law “serves public morality” by ultimately protecting the institution of marriage itself, and said that if laws finding sodomy illegal constituted unlawful discrimination, then marriage laws would be found to discriminate and be unconstitutional.

“Homosexuals as fellow citizens have the right to expect decent treatment from the rest of us; but they have no right to insist we surrender our fundamental moral beliefs so they can feel comfortable about their sexual behavior,” spoke Thio. “We should not be subject to the tyranny of the undemocratic minority who want to violate our consciences, trample on our cherished moral virtues and threaten our collective welfare by imposing homosexual dogma on right-thinking people.”

Video of Dr. Thio Li-Ann's speech to the 2007 Singapore Parliament can be found in three parts here, here, and here.

A transcript of that speech can be found here.