On gay marriage and the parliamentary struggle

The fear that an LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) group in the party list system would usher in the erosion of the Filipino family is unfounded.

Of course, the fear emanates from the fact that some sectors of the LGBT community are advocating gay marriage, a position which allegedly poses a potential “threat” to existing legal and constitutional provisions on “the Filipino family.”  (Ang Ladlad, the party list group recently denied recognition by the Commission on Elections, has, in earlier reports, however, clarified that gay marriage is not among its agenda.)

It should be made clear to the public that an LGBT party list group in congress doesn’t necessarily mean a vote for gay marriages. The issue of gay marriage, after all, does not and should not define an LGBT representation in a hall of democracy.

On the one hand, there are other (in fact, more pronounced) forms of discrimination against gay persons in various spheres of public life (work place, school, government offices, etc.) that need to be addressed by such a representation. On the other hand, there is still (a healthy) debate going on among gay circles on the issue of gay marriage. In other words, not all gay people are advocating gay marriage.

I for one am not convinced with the idea of gay marriages.

I do not believe marriage is the only legitimate place or “the holy ground” for the expression of love including consensual, responsible, and yes, passionate, genital expression. To embrace the idea of marriage as the only legitimate ground for such human expression is to submit and be complicit to the heterosexist invention that human love is circumscribed. I don’t think there is anything liberating about that.

What is liberating to me is when respect and recognition are accorded to partnerships that do not necessarily fit within the heterosexist definition of marriage.  Respecting these partnerships would mean not using them as bases for discriminating people when applying for employment or for admission to schools or for promotions in the work setting. Recognizing these partnerships would mean an end to their construction in media and public spaces as objects of spectacle—as curious cases of human intimacy (what is so curious about two people loving each other?) and as targets of ridicule.

Such respect for and recognition of the diversity in human-to-human relationships can only be achieved, though, within a context that is devoid of feudalistic, unequal power relations, which ultimately sustain the hegemony of heterosexism in Philippine society in particular and in human societies at large.

In other words, there are bigger social problems that are beyond the immediate concerns of gay people but that a gay representation in Congress should pursue and address. These social problems (e.g., militarization in the countryside) may appear to be remotely related to what is purported as the “gay cause” (e.g., an end to discrimination), but whose resolution remain significant to the gay cause and other liberatory causes nonetheless. They are problems within which the experiences of Filipino gay people and other minority groups are deeply implicated.

Addressing these social problems through parliamentary struggle and through representation in the Philippine hall of democracy should therefore not be denied of gay people and other minority groups.