On Tuesday, heart-rending Family Day images on television will remind us about the importance of family.

I never fail to make me appreciate mine but as soon as the pictures come on, I intend to respectfully turn off.

The only kind of family Thailand cares about is the telegenic one - husband, wife and children with the occasional grandparents thrown in.

Such wildly idealistic images do a disservice to millions of Thais, by telling you that "family" is something yours isn't.

According to them, my unit - a gay son and his mother - doesn't quite qualify as a "family".

Neither do unmarried couples or single mothers or grandparents raising grandchildren - the kind of non-families that are found in abundance throughout the country.

And we're not even talking about same-sex couples like in the US where a discriminatory immigration law will soon tear a lesbian mother away from her partner of 23 years and their two sons.

One need not wonder what would happen to Shirley Tan's non-"family", were they in Thailand.

Here, "authority" can get away with anything.

Last year, paediatrician Dr Suryadev Tripati told absent fathers to spend more time at home, otherwise their children risk becoming gay or katoey for want of a role model.

I hope the good doctor can cite scientific evidence to support his imagination. Perhaps a study that finds increased "homosexualisation" of orphans or more "transgenderisation" among kids raised by grandparents?

Based on good intentions rather than good science, his claim not only stigmatises homosexuality and transgenderism, but also puts the guilt squarely on parents for supposedly bad parenting.

Previously, he also blamed aggressive or weak parents for the same effect.

In January, the Journal of the American Academy of Paediatrics published a study showing that young gay people whose parents responded negatively when they revealed their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and use drugs than those whose families accepted the news.

Thai "experts" will do well to expand their minds with international peer-reviewed research like this.

Hopefully in time they will learn about understanding and acceptance, the real essence of a family, rather than the value judgement of diverse sexuality.

Stopping calling us "sexual deviants", as if it were an acceptable term anywhere in the world, will be a good sign. --Daily Xpress/Asia News Network