COMMENT | A Syariah lawyer friend of mine whom I’ve known for a long time (who had always been a social commentator in the scene and then decided to become a politician in the last 2022 Johor state election, but lost), once said to me that there is nothing wrong with being conservative.

He said it in an interview for a news feature story I was doing about LGBT issues in Malaysia. This was so long ago, probably more than 15 years ago.

I was fairly young then and the perspectives I held were very passionate to me. So passionate that I sometimes (or maybe all the time!) made the mistake of seeing that my perspectives were the only correct ones.

This is not to say that I don’t think being passionate about one’s opinions is wrong. It’s good. How else can we take action, right? But it shouldn’t be so blind that we get blocked from seeing and trying to understand other perspectives.

Now, my Syariah lawyer friend said it in response to questions about the treatment of homosexuals in Malaysia.

His explanation was that...