Report: Indonesia Now Testing for Gay Teachers
In recent year, Indonesia — which has the most Muslims of all the world's countries — has grown increasingly anti-LGBTQ, with conservative news sources accusing non-heterosexuals of being so by choice and constituting a "contagion" to society and the government coming to echo those sentiments to the point of nearly passing a harsh anti-LGBTQ law last fall. (That same law is expected to come up again in 2020's legislative schedule.)
Under a new regulation, Indonesian schools have taken another step down the homophobic rabbit hole and begun requiring teachers to take tests that purportedly probe the psyches of those taking them and screen out gays, reports the New York Times.
The questions appear to be as ludicrous — and as binary — as one might expect in a nation where a government official in charge of child welfare recently declared that being gay is "caused" by "a carefree lifestyle" and urged gays to seek a cure.
The New York Times offered a couple of examples, presenting these "true or false" queries purportedly from one such gay-seeking test:
"I wouldn't want to die without having experimented sexually with both men and women."
"The gender composition of an orgy would be irrelevant to my decision to participate."
"Celebrations such as gay pride day are ridiculous because they assume an individual's sexual orientation should constitute a source of pride."
Just as unprofessional and ramshackle as the questions are the circumstances around which teachers are required to answer them. The Times noted that the tests are required under new provisions, but that their administration iOS "haphazard," and also observed that there is "no standardized" version of the test.
Equally irrational and non-scientific is the justification for the exams: A case from 2014 in which a foreign national — a Canadian — who was teaching in Indonesia was convicted, along with six Indonesians, of sexual abuse of students. The official narrative that got them convicted included claims that the non-Indonesian man "used magical powers to seduce the children and render the crime scenes invisible," the Times reported.
The news report discerned that although the exam's purported intent is to weed out paedophiles, the questions themselves are glaringly overt in seeking to identify not potential child molesters, but rather homosexuals.
Professionals in mental health, sexuality, and law enforcement know that more than 90% of child abusers identify as heterosexual; as a fact page maintained by Dr. Gregory Herek of UC Davis explains, "studies failed to support the hypothesis that homosexual males are more likely than heterosexual men to molest children or to be sexually attracted to children or adolescents." Furthermore, the gender of paedophiles' victims is determined not by whether the victims are boys or girls, but rather by access and opportunity.
But the fig leaf argument of "protecting children" doesn't need much in the way of credibility. As the Times noted:
...the country's new vice president, Ma'ruf Amin, formerly a leading Islamic cleric, has long supported criminalization and harsh punishment of gays and lesbians.