A Singaporean pastor has delivered a sermon titled God’s Pattern for Marriage in front of 3,000 people in which he called the LGBT movement ‘diabolical’.

‘I believe that God has awakened to face one of the greatest attacks on the family by the evil one,’ said Lawrence Khong.

Khong also called the LGBT rights movement the ‘onslaught of the evil one’.

The sermon is significant as Khong is influential in Singapore. Former prime minister Goh Chok Tong has visited his Faith Community Baptist Church, which has over 9,000 members.

‘We are vulnerable, not just as individuals, but as a community,’ said Jean Chong founder of Singaporean LGBT rights group Sayoni about why speeches such as Khong’s cannot just be dismissed.

‘Hate speech can escalate into hate crime. As a society, we need to signal that such threats and acts are not acceptable. They offend public decency and are unjust.’

In contrast, today Singapore’s law minister K Shanmugam Sc praised a 12-year-old boy who stood up against anti-gay bullies in a YouTube video that now has over 100,000 views.

‘Articulate, talented young boy,’ said the law minister. ‘We should all condemn bullying, whether it is on cyberspace or in classrooms.’

Chong, who asked Shanmugam to do more for LGBT Singaporeans at a meeting in January, said that he should go further and condemn legalized bullying and bullying in the churches.

‘Isn’t 377A [the law that criminalizes gay sex] a form of institutionalized bullying by targeting gay men?’ said Chong.

‘Isn’t postings like this from Lawrence Khong not bigotry or hate speech? Is bigotry propagated by religions in the name of God okay in Singapore? Sounds like the government agree it is!’