Malaysians lampoon minister over stress-gay link: ‘they never work hard in parliament?’

A Malaysian minister has become the butt of jokes for claiming that work stress can turn people gay, as continued government intervention of what it describes as sexually deviant behaviour piles pressure on the country’s LGBTQ community.

The enforcement spotlight fell on Malaysia’s sexual minorities two weeks ago after religious authorities and police acted on complaints from a sultan and Islamist politicians that a camping retreat was promoting the LGBTQ lifestyle.

The community came under fresh scrutiny when Religious Affairs Minister Zulkifli Hasan said on Tuesday that work stress was among several factors allegedly pushing people into sexual orientations that were not strictly heterosexual.

“Societal influence, sexual experiences, work stress and other personal factors come under this category [of possible causes],” Zulkifli said in a written parliamentary reply to a question by Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff, a lawmaker with the opposition Islamist party PAS.

Citing a 2017 study by “Sulaiman et al”, the minister said the combination of such elements “can contribute to the increase in LGBT acts”.

The blowback on Malaysia’s raucous social media was swift.

Posts on Zulkifli’s statement drew thousands of comments, with many taking the opportunity to poke fun at the minister while questioning the logic behind his assumptions.