Edwin Tong's views on homosexuality

Edwin Tong is a member of the People's Action Party (PAP) and a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Marine Parade GRC.



=Online harassment of LGBT teens=

In then Senior Minister of State Edwin Tong's speech (on behalf of the Minister of Law) during the second reading of the Protection from Harassment (Amendment) Bill, on 7 May 2019, he addressed he need to tackle online harassment and pointed out that:

"Recent surveys show: ... LGBT teens are 5 times more at risk of being abused on Facebook than non-LGBT teens. This online harassment translates into real world violence."

=Embracing friend of different sexuality=

Tong was a panellist during a virtual ministerial engagement session entitled "Conversations on Singapore Spirit" organised on Saturday, 3 July 2021 by the National Youth Council ('NYC) in line with Youth Month which fell in July that year. A fellow panellist, actress and singer Annette Lee suggested embracing diversity in a tangible way and encouraging people to be "a little bit less insular". Tong expanded on the suggestion by saying: "Take, for example, if we had a friend who was from a different race, different gender, different age profile or different sexuality... If we each had a personal friend like that, and we understood and knew that person better, I think we will find ourselves a lot more tolerant, a lot more accepting, and eventually a lot more embracing of these differences."



=See also=
 * Singapore politicians' views on homosexuality

=References=
 * https://www.mlaw.gov.sg/news/parliamentary-speeches/second-reading-speech-sms-edwin-tong-poha-amendments
 * https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/community/a-caring-spore-will-be-new-glue-that-binds-society-edwin-tong

=Acknowledgements=

This article was written by Roy Tan.