The politics of sexual morality and evangelical activism in Hong Kong

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.