The politics of sexual morality and evangelical activism in Hong Kong
WONG Wai Ching Angela
Abstract This paper aims to review the discourse of sexual morality as recently staged by Christian evangelical groups in Hong Kong and the effects of this new round of evangelical activism on the shaping of recent political culture in Hong Kong. Unlike the moral campaign against decriminalization of homosexuality in the 1980s, which eventually lost to the reasoning of British rule of law implicit in Hong Kong legislature, this new Christian movement for the defense of sexual morality in Hong Kong is situated at the juncture of political contestation between the local democratic movement and the pro-establishment political forces including pro-Beijing businessmen, political organizations and personnel. With a high degree of ideological and strategic affinity with the Christian Right movement which collaborates with conservative Republican groups in the United States, the evangelical campaigners of Hong Kong, whether consciously or not, have gained much political currency in collaborating with the pro-establishment forces of Hong Kong. As a result, sexual morality articulated in the name of the preservation of traditions, whether they are Christian or Chinese, has fed an autocratic political movement of Hong Kong that partakes the dangerously divisive politics of the fundamentalist religious movements around the globe.
Keywords: Christian Right, anti-homosexual movement, pro-family campaign, sexual minority right, Hong Kong Christianity, postcolonial church
Author’s biography
WONG Wai Ching Angela is an Associate Professor of the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies and the Associate Director of Gender Research Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Some related publications include: “Negotiating Gender: Postcolonialism and Hong Kong Christian Women,” in Gender and Society in Hong Kong (UBC Press, 2003), “Our Bodies Our Stories: Narrating Female Sexuality in Hong Kong,” in Mainstreaming Gender in Hong Kong (CU Press, 2009), and co-ed. with CHOI Poking, Chinese Women and Hong Kong Christianity: An Oral History (In Chinese) (Oxford University Press, 2010).