The Ties That Bind
By M.D. dela Cruz Tan

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When Harold S. passed away, “it was the second saddest day of my life,” says John M., his partner of over 20 years.  “The saddest day?  His family came over to take him from me.  This is the same family that disowned him when he came out as a gay guy.”

Told he made Harold S. “live in sin” when he was still alive, “it’s not like there was anything I can do, actually,” John M. says, “as, basically, I had no right over him.  He was with me, but he was never mine.  Not really.”

John M.’s lament (of never having “owned” Harold S.) is based on “our inability to become one, as the expression is used in (heterosexual) relationships,” he says, “because we never became one.  We were never married.”

And in these words, “sad as they are,” John M. summarizes a 20-year relationship – just as the same words become relevant in the continuing push to promote equal rights to everyone irrespective of gender/sexual identification.

SOCIAL PREJUDICE

Marriage – that officialised union between two people – is, by and large, still only available to self-identifying heterosexual people in most countries, thus the making of sexual roles of husband and wife when married.  As Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, explaining Senate Bill 1282 (in the 14th Congress), which aims to amend the Family Code to expressly exempt same sex marriages, even when performed overseas, in countries where they may be recognized, from being recognized in the Philippines (Article 6 states that “marriages solemnized abroad and are valid as such are recognized as valid here”), says: “Marriage is a union founded on the distinction of sex.  That contracting parties must be of different sex is, in fact, a requirement under the provisions on legal capacity.”

Why the surprising continuing vehemence against same sex marriage?

The position taken by those contradicting equal rights as far as marriage is concerned is, largely, religious (i.e. God made man and woman, not man and man), so that anything following it is, simply, taboo.  More specifically, traditionally cited entries in the Bible are (in the Old Testament) Genesis 2: 22 to 24 (for a man to leave his parents, and be united with a woman), Genesis 19:5 (the erroneous pinpointing of homosexuals for the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, also cited in Qur’an), and Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 (with a man not to sleep “lie” with a another man); as well as (in the New Testament) I Corinthians 6: 8 to 10, and Romans 1: 24 to 27 (only male-female relations is considered “normal, and same sex relations are seen as “perversions”).  Thus, and it follows that the likes of Pope Benedict XVI (former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), while promoting the “hate the sin, love the sinner” mantra, see homosexuality, while not necessarily a sin, is seen as a tendency toward an “intrinsic moral evil,” so that “a person engaging in homosexual behaviour therefore acts immorally” as sex should only be practiced for procreation between a married man and a woman.

This way of seeing homosexuality – thus same sex relations – is dominant in the Philippines, with an estimated over 80% of its over 87 million people largely accepted (correctly or incorrectly) to be Christians.

Somewhat expected, therefore, are discriminatory moves against homosexuals, and their relations – e.g. as early as 1998, Senators Marcelo B. Fernan and, yes, Santiago submitted four bills in the Senate that sought to bar marriages involving transgenders (TGs), as well as deny recognition in the Philippines of marriages involving transgenders in countries where such relationships are recognized.  Subsequently, working as a tag team, Rep. Rozzano Rufino Biazon introduced House Bill 1245, with his father introducing a mirror version in the Senate, as both sought to “prohibit marriages between two men, one of whom had a sex exchange (sic.) operation; and between two women, one of whom also had a sex exchange (sic.) operation,” calling for marriages to be allowed only between “natural born males and natural born females” because “transsexual marriages would violate the laws of God, of man, and of nature.”

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