I am not a big fan of same-sex marriage. Unless it’s Jericho Rosales or Piolo Pascual asking for my hand, I’m not really that eager to tie the knot.
This is hardly suprising, especially since most lesbian and gay activists in my organization do not think that same-sex marriage should be in our agenda, at least not right now. Also, contrary to this man’s rants, the Anti-Discrimination Bill won’t legalize same-sex marriage.
Why this stance on same-sex marriage? I have been reminded several times - by heterosexuals, for that matter - that we sound too defensive about same-sex relationships. Is it due to cynicism? Most of us are single most of the time. Trauma? Those who got “married” ended up being “divorced”, indeed a demanding exercise of imagination since neither “same-sex marriage” nor divorce is legal in the Philippines. Promiscuity? Ah, but even married heterosexual couples violate supposedly sacred vows of monogamy.
One may hurl labels and names, but as traditionally promoted, marriage itself has flaws that we tend to overlook. “Traditional marriage” oftentimes means unequal partnerships, where women are deemed subservient to the more dominant men. While marriage, for many, is an expression of a romantic promise, we need to face the reality that it is also used as a tool to reproduce prejudices and biases that diminish what supposedly unites couples.
(Then there is the case of arrogant Catholic priests officiating the ceremony. During my brother’s wedding, the priest - with booming voice delivered from the pulpit - shouted at the bride due to a minor delay. So the ceremony started unceremoniously, with the parents of the bride absent. The priest, we discovered later, had another appointment, which explained why he skipped parts of the ceremony and rushed straight to ‘you may kiss the bride’. Funny, but haven’t the Vatican and the CBCP lambasted same-sex marriage in the past due to the supposed sanctity and importance of traditional marriage?)
Well, I’m not wild about that kind of marriage. Gay or not, I won’t enter into an arrangement that reduces the space that celebrates and affirms one’s individual existence. Marriage also has to be founded on equality and the recognition of our diversity.
This is not to say that same-sex marriage should not be in the agenda of gay and lesbian activists. The reluctance to push for the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships should also be examined in the same manner that we hope to re-think how marriage should be organized or oriented. As an activist, I am committed to oppose attempts to ban same-sex marriage in the Philippines and I admit that I am personally in favor of the legal recognition of same-sex relationships, be it in the form of marriage or civil unions or domestic partnership. Same-sex relationships and their legal recognition are never a middle class concern, and haven’t we said before that love cuts across classes and genders? My only appeal for those who are in favor or against same-sex relationships is to allow the public, including the LGBT community and the religious right, to discuss the issue and debate on it thoroughly.
Such a debate, however, cannot take place in a climate where basic fairness is not protected. After all, how could one think of marriage and unions when one faces discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity? The LGBT community encounters everyday prejudice where speaking openly about one’s sexuality could lead to physical abuses, dismissal from employment, or expulsion from one’s school. We can debate on the issue till the Second Coming, but there are fundamental, bread-and-butter issues that need to be settled and addressed.
In a country that suffers from the brunt of Catholic conservatism for several centuries, arguing for protection against discrimination and for same-sex unions is daunting. For one, the LGBT community needs to be stronger and organizing must be taken seriously and strategically to have a stronger political leverage. The influence of Catholic Church, which continues to muddle the issues through its divisive sectarianism, can only be curtailed by an organized LGBT community.
What’s humbling is that when it gets too complicated or daunting, there are unexpected streaks of wisdom from people whom the rest of us refer to as ’straight’ - or ‘normal’. I came across this moving speech delivered by a Canadian MP in defense an existing law allowing same-sex marriage in the country. Indulge.
(From Hansard, Dec. 6)
Hon. Ken Dryden, MP (York Centre, Lib.)Mr. Speaker, this is a difficult matter for many Canadians and many parliamentarians.
When one is a regular citizen, one has a right not to have a public opinion, to remain quiet, to say “I do not know”, to be unsure enough to decide even not to make up one’s own mind, let alone influence others. As a member of Parliament, I lose that right. I have to stand and be counted because a decision must be made, yes or no, and the public has the right to know what I decide so they can decide about me.
I bring no special expertise to the issue of same sex marriage. I went to church as a child. I loved hymns and, at times, the feeling of church, the quiet and community of it, the getting dressed up, the family together and the niceness of it. I did not read the Bible except to memorize a few parts for Sunday school. I found the 10 commandments interesting for what was included and what was not. I thought the name “The Golden Rule” pushed a little hard and yet I am not sure I have heard 11 such simple, non-pushy words, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, that offer a better personal or societal path to life.
Not many years ago, I decided to read the Bible from beginning to end. The experience only confirmed what I had vaguely felt for most of my life, that the Bible offered the best thinking and understandings of a time, a place and people. It reflected how people explained to themselves the world, how the world worked, how people should behave and what would happen if they did not. Much of the wisdom of the Bible has held up in different times and places for different people, but to me no wisdom is timeless. Each is challenged by a new time. Some pieces of wisdom last, some do not.
In thinking about same sex marriage, I have only the experiences of my own life to go on. I am not sure when I first heard the playground words kids used for homosexuals. It was certainly many years before I knew what they meant. The words were intended to punish, to hurt. They said, “You are weak”, “You are not a man”.
By the time I knew better what they meant, I do not think I ever believed that anyone I knew really was one. There were rumours and whispers intended to put down somebody someone wanted to put down. Somebody somewhere surely must be one, I knew, but nobody in my world. I have since come to know that kids I knew very well, kids in my own class, were gay or lesbian.
I have thought how impossibly hard it must have been for them. As teenagers, all of us had to struggle so hard to figure out what was going on in our own bodies and minds, having strange things begin to happen to us, which surely were not normal and must make us bad. What would the other kids think if they knew? What would our parents think? There must be something wrong with me, darkly, dirtily wrong, and we were the lucky ones, the ones who never had to confront the possibility that we were going in the unthinkably wrong direction. We had only to find a way to do acceptably what was acceptable.
What must it have been like for the others? How often must they have thought themselves hideous and unspeakable?
In more recent decades, I have seen what this exclusion has done to people. I have seen them forced to twist and contort themselves to hide and pretend just to get the chance to do the things they wanted to do in life, having about them one big fact that to others completely defines them.
I think now about the untold lives this has directed and shaped and the untold lives it has destroyed. This is so far from being right, it is outrageous.
I grew up knowing that marriage was something that involved a man and a women. Kids eventually seemed to be a part of marriage because that is how life worked, but they did not have to be, as many very good marriages did not produce kids. I thought marriage was something that people did when they loved one another so much that they could not stop themselves from committing to each other privately, and then in a public ceremony, vowing that they wanted to be with each other forever.
I never thought of marriage as something that could involve a man and a man or a woman and a woman. I never thought about a man and a man or a woman and a woman loving each other in a marriage way. I have thought about this question more in recent years. How do I feel? Like most people I think, not entirely comfortable.
Life is hard, even when we live on the majority side of things, of race, language, culture, religion, sexuality. Our biggest challenge as human beings is to get along, to learn about each other, to accept differences, to give the same chance to others to live their lives as we would like them to give to us and to allow others to share fully and completely in the world.
It is also hard to have to think again in a different way about something we had always experienced differently, like marriage. I think the great majority of Canadians on either side of the same sex marriage debate are not 100% sure or comfortable. That is important to know. In the midst of this often heated debate, it is hard not to be swayed, usually in the reverse direction, by the words and tone of the advocates who scream their certainty, who tell the rest of us that we must surely be stupid or at least depraved if we are not as certain as they are.
It is okay to be 60-40 or 70-30 on this. As the debate more and more attempts to polarize us, it is important to know that on one side of the question or the other, most of us have more in common than it seems. It is important to know because it will help us immensely to get along again, as we must, when all this is done.
All these decades later, with the vote ahead of me, where am I? For me, man and woman, man and man or woman and woman, marriage is for two people who love each other, who want to be with each other and who privately and publicly commit to each other. I support same sex marriage and I will vote against the government’s motion.
June 2, 2007 at 1:13 am
its the legal ramifications of same-sex marriage or civil union is more important.
a very long battle is ahead for this heated argument.. and i believe politics in this country is not mature enough to tackle this issue. i think our lawmakers are still worried about their pork barrel.
June 4, 2007 at 1:03 am
hi chase and bonn,
thanks for your comments. sometimes it’s not a question of maturity, but modernity of political institutions. when Congress operates under a strong party system, when parties are able to gather the interests of the people and convert them into concrete policies and programs, a climate of human rights is established. it thus becomes easy to push for same-sex marriage, civil union, or domestic partnership.
bonn, dapat sa lifetime natin. hehe. basta. sana kunin na ni lord si abante.
June 4, 2007 at 6:59 am
Interesting…. A complex issue indeed. I could only say that having same-sex marriage accepted in the formal social institutions of the Philippines … not in our lifetime, Jonas! And so, enjoy life the way lovers know it best! After all, love knows no identity, no gender, no institutions; but only its own deep affection.
But yes, the advocacy for such social acceptance has to continue for the future generation to whom we owe our past and present struggles.
June 5, 2007 at 2:51 pm
“Such a debate, however, cannot take place in a climate where basic fairness is not protected. After all, how could one think of marriage and unions when one faces discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity?”
But gay marriage is part and parcel of the fight for equal rights. Discrimination will happen whether we like it or not, bigots will exist whether we like it or not.
But if the gay and lesbian community in the Philippines want to be recognized as legally equal by Philippine society, then same-sex marriage should be part of the agenda. All of the rights that straight Filipinos enjoy should be enjoyed by gays and lesbians, even if these are only written in the laws of the land, we can change societal perceptions after the laws have passed.
One last opinion:
An anti-discrimination law should apply to all aspects of society, education, work, entertainment, marriage etc. It should also apply to all members of society, gays, lesbians, differently-abled, religious minorities, etc. Maybe the anti-discrimination bill the gay and lesbian community is championing should be broadened to be an anti-discrimination bill for all oppressed minorities in the Philippines. So that a broader coalition can be formed that to push for a bill that will give equality to all Filipinos.
p.s.
Of course, the gay and lesbian community is still the best judge of when to push the gay and lesbian agenda.
June 6, 2007 at 1:29 am
hey roy,
same-sex marriage is in the agenda, and I do agree that it is a question of equality. my point, however, is that instituting reforms to protect basic fairness (such as ensuring access to education for all, equal opportunities in employment, etc.) should be urgently addressed. discrimination, as a bread and butter issue, diminishes one’s dignity and should be stopped. Tackling same-sex marriage on one hand and broad discriminatory practices and policies on the other is not an either-or situation, though practical issues have to be considered: the LGBT community’s resources, the capacity to wage a campaign on same-sex marriage, etc.
on the anti-discrimination bill, there are laws prohibiting discrimination against women, ethnic minorities, and people with disability already. While i am not against a consolidated bill for various forms of discrimination, I think a separate bill for LGBTs (and for other sectors, for that matter) is necessary to deepen public awareness on discrimination. Law-making should be a communication tool, as well. An alternative is to change the name of bill to make it more specific.
(There was an attempt in the House Committee on Labor to create a comprehensive equal opportunities law. during the hearing, a representative from the pwa sector said that LGBTs should be stricken out of the bill because we are immoral. kahit sa mga marginalized communities, may discrimination din.)
June 7, 2007 at 12:28 pm
guys like you are afraid to push for the legalization of same sex marriage unlike your American, Canadian and Spanish counterparts.
all of you are afraid to face politicians, afraid to face the religious groups, that is why it not in your agenda to push same-sex marriage. a house divided by itself will not stand. the GLBT community here in the Philippines is still divided unlike in other countries.
that is why until now no politicians is serious enough to hear us. until then, we are going to be the victims of slap stick and toilet humor to entertain the heterosexual community in our country. Unite first the GLBT community.
not alll gays are afraid to speak about same sex marriage unlike you
June 7, 2007 at 12:31 pm
ps. you said that some marriages ended in divorce. it is not because of marriage it’s because of the couples differences. that is why don’t get married if you don’t know your partner.
June 9, 2007 at 3:43 pm
whoa, randy!
i never said that we are afraid to push for same-sex marriage. in fact, I, in my capacity to represent my organization, as well as other members of my organization, have spoken in the past before politicians (in Congress) and before religious groups on the right of LGBTs to form their own families and to defend the validity of same-sex unions. We even had a picket during the World Gathering of Families, which was held in PICC in Metro Manila, to denounce the Catholic hierarchy’s refusal to recognize that same-sex unions are families as well. I and some members of LAGABLAB also appeared in congressional hearings to oppose bills that seek to ban same-sex marriage in the country.
I think I made a distinction between my personal sentiment (that I personally don’t feel like getting married) and my advocacy (that same-sex unions should be legally recognized and protected by the State). What I was also trying to say is that there as some conditions that should be considered when pushing for same-sex unions: how organized the community is to launch a successful campaign, the existence and strength of allies from the progressive community, the basic welfare of the community, etc.
One good example or point of comparison would be the US and Spain. The legal recognition of same sex union in the US is unsuccessful because of the relative weakness of the LGBT movement vis-a-vis the strength of conservative forces. The movement there lacked the allies to organize a successful campaign. There was also a backlash, as seen in several attempts to reverse pro-LGBT court rulings on the constitutionality of the legal recognition of same-sex unions.
The LGBT movement in Spain may be weaker, but it was actually the Socialist Party’s (PSOE) victory that led to the recognition of same-sex unions in Spain. It also helped that the leader of the Socialist Party, Zapatero, identifies himself as a feminist and has strongly pushed for stricter policies against domestic violence. In short, despite the weakness of the Spanish LGBT movement, there was a political opportunity - through the PSOE - to push for same-sex unions.
We don’t have those conditions yet. The Left, which has pushed for same-sex unions and LGBT rights in Spain, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, South Africa, etc, is not in power here. The LGBT movement is also not strong organizationally. To wage a successful campaign, these issues have to be considered. Otherwise, the backlash could be great.
Jonas
PS. I think it is ok to get married even if you do not know fully your partner - i actually don’t even know if it is possible to “fully” know one’s partner. but marriage is a leap of faith. the point is that when we make mistakes, when we have entered into a marriage that turned out to be infirm, there should be mechanisms to remedy such infirmities. Divorce is one of the solutions.
June 9, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I suddenly remembered my family law subject in college. During the first class, the lawyer professor asked us to define marriage. I raised my hand and said, “marriage is the legal union between two persons”.
The lawyer professor laughed and said, “with that definition, two men or two women can marry in the Philippines. So that is wrong.”
I felt wronged. In my mind, I believed that my definition was correct.
June 17, 2007 at 8:40 am
It has always puzzled me how some members of a minority and persecuted group can come around and persecute a minority. They know how hard it is to be ostracized by the larger community and yet, they can’t seem to emphatize with others.
An example from Dispatches from the Culture Wars
June 19, 2007 at 12:18 pm
@hastydevil
Your college professor is right. We are currently following the 1987 Family Code of the Philippines, which states one of the requirements of marriage: the union of (legally-declared, as indicated in the birth certificate) male & female of legal age.
To be honest, your definition is ’supposed’ to be the right one, as indicated in Article 32, Section 8 of Civil Code of the Philippines (the right to the equal protection of the laws).
August 10, 2007 at 8:59 am
Hi again,
Here’s a link to an Ed Brayton post on why gay marriage matters.
October 9, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I think for ones that same sex marriage is never should be a issue of the society. It is because there is nothing wrong with same sex marriage. having yourself commited to the same gender, is not wrong. because is it not that marriage is the bond between two people who are deeplky in love. why not with gay or lesbian people?
and if we are to talk about it in religouse aspect, the bible did not say anything that having same sex marriage would result to sin. and if it were a sin wouldn’t God in the first place would not allow this, i mean God would not have created man turning to gay or women turning to lesbian right