This was first brought to my attention through a friend's blog and was posted by his co-blogger. These op-ed pieces appeared in one of the major newspapers in the Philippines. The fact that the first one was allowed to be put in print, freedom of speech notwithstanding, is appalling, and one coming from a former Supreme Court justice. The second, an apt response, was written by writer/journalist Manuel Quezon III. But it is also telling of how many people still view sexuality--not just homosexuality but also heterosexuality and everything else outside of that box. I'm sure more than a few people still agree with the sentiments expressed by Justic Isagani Cruz. To wear the label 'macho' as a badge of honor is not only unfashionable in these times, but to invoke the image of a 'macho man' also reeks of sexism and misogynism. I wouldn't be surprised if this piece was accompanied by another one saying that a woman's place is in the kitchen and her role in life is to serve her husband. (And of course, it goes without saying that a woman should be married because where would she be without her husband, right?) When someone says or writes something disparaging like this (and the gall of the man, to be so patronizing by saying that it's okay to be gay as long as you don't act gay---as if a person's gender identity can be encapsulated within a label and in stereotypes) against a certain group, he doesn't just insult that specific group but all human beings in general. Gay issues are gender issues. Women issues are gender issues. Men issues are gender issues. So, if we want gender equality, we should mean it--that is, we should demand equality between men, women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender. Nobody should read this piece by Justice Cruz and not feel offended and say that it's only a gay issue.
I don't feel hate or anger towards Justice Cruz, as I imagine some people do. I just feel sorry for him. This was the same Supreme Court Justice, who, after his retirement, along with lawyer Cesar Europa, questioned the constitutionality of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. (I wrote a paper in grad school about the extractive industries and indigenous peoples.) They, fortunately, did not succeed. And I am also relieved that he is no longer serving the bench because his presence there would only have been a disservice.
For me, this particular incident does not only bring out the issue of gender and gender identity. We should always be conscious about what we say and how we act towards other people, and especially those we consider as the 'other.' We should learn to blur the line dividing us and the 'other' person. And this should not only apply to one's gender identity but also to how we perceive a person's skin color, his or her cultural background, social class, belief system, etc. Very often we make jokes on the expense of someone's outward appearance and actions but feel offended when someone judges us the same way. Most of the the time we claim to be tolerant but hardly act or speak in a way that respect other people. We should learn to move beyond mere tolerance and actually try to understand others. Go ahead, put yourself in someone else's shoes and imagine what it's like to be them. Maybe we'll learn to be sensitive towards, if not respectful, of others. Come on, let's learn how to act like human beings and recognize that each one of us, unique individuals, has a place here on earth. The only thing we shouldn't tolerate is intolerance.
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‘Don we now our gay apparel’
By Isagani Cruz Former Supreme Court Justice of the Philippines
Inquirer
Last updated 02:14am (Mla time) 08/12/2006
Published on Page A10 of the August 12, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
HOMOSEXUALS before were mocked and derided, but now they are
regarded with new-found respect and, in many cases, even treated as
celebrities. Only recently, the more impressionable among our people
wildly welcomed a group of entertainers whose main proud advertisement
was that they were “queer.” It seems that the present society has
developed a new sense of values that have rejected our religious
people’s traditional ideas of propriety and morality on the pretext of
being “modern” and “broad-minded.”
The observations I will here make against homosexuals in general do
not include the members of their group who have conducted themselves
decorously, with proper regard not only for their own persons but also
for the gay population in general. A number of our local couturiers, to
take but one example, are less than manly but they have behaved in a
reserved and discreet manner unlike the vulgar members of the gay
community who have degraded and scandalized it. I offer abject
apologies to those blameless people I may unintentionally include in my
not inclusive criticisms. They have my admiration and respect.
The change in the popular attitude toward homosexuals is not
particular to the Philippines. It has become an international trend
even in the so-called sophisticated regions with more liberal concepts
than in our comparatively conservative society. Gay marriages have been
legally recognized in a number of European countries and in some parts
of the United States. Queer people — that’s the sarcastic term for them
— have come out of the closet where before they carefully concealed
their condition. The permissive belief now is that homosexuals belong
to a separate third sex with equal rights as male and female persons
instead of just an illicit in-between gender that is neither here nor
there.
When I was studying in the Legarda Elementary School in Manila
during the last 1930s, the big student population had only one, just
one, homosexual. His name was Jose but we all called him Josefa. He was
a quiet and friendly boy whom everybody liked to josh but not
offensively. In the whole district of Sampaloc where I lived, there was
only one homosexual who roamed the streets peddling “kalamay” and
“puto” and other treats for snacks. He provided diversion to his genial
customers and did not mind their familiar amiable teasing. I think he
actually enjoyed being a “binabae” [effeminate].
The change came, I think, when an association of homos dirtied the
beautiful tradition of the Santa Cruz de Mayo by parading their kind as
the “sagalas” instead of the comely young maidens who should have been
chosen to grace the procession. Instead of being outraged by the
blasphemy, the watchers were amused and, I suppose, indirectly
encouraged the fairies to project themselves. It must have been then
that they realized that they were what they were, whether they liked it
or not, and that the time for hiding their condition was over.
Now homosexuals are everywhere, coming at first in timorous and
eventually alarming and audacious number. Beauty salons now are served
mostly by gay attendants including effeminate bearded hairdressers to
whom male barbers have lost many of their macho customers. Local shows
have their share of “siyoke” [gay men], including actors like the one
rejected by a beautiful wife in favor of a more masculine if less
handsome partner. And, of course, there are lady-like directors who are
probably the reason why every movie and TV drama must have the
off-color “bading” [gay] or two to cheapen the proceedings.
And the schools are now fertile ground for the gay invasion. Walking
along the University belt one day, I passed by a group of boys
chattering among themselves, with one of them exclaiming seriously,
“Aalis na ako. Magpapasuso pa ako!” [“I’m leaving. I still have to
breastfeed!”] That pansy would have been mauled in the school where my
five sons (all machos) studied during the ’70s when all the students
were certifiably masculine. Now many of its pupils are gay, and I don’t
mean happy. I suppose they have been influenced by such shows as
“Brokeback Mountain,” our own “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros”
(both of which won awards), “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” and that
talk program of Ellen Degeneres, an admitted lesbian.
Is our population getting to be predominantly pansy? Must we allow
homosexuality to march unobstructed until we are converted into a
nation of sexless persons without the virility of males and the grace
of females but only an insipid mix of these diluted virtues? Let us be
warned against the gay population, which is per se a compromise between
the strong and the weak and therefore only somewhat and not the
absolute of either of the two qualities. Be alert lest the Philippine
flag be made of delicate lace and adorned with embroidered frills.
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‘The grand inquisitor ‘
By Manuel L. Quezon III Grandson of the former President Manuel Quezon
Inquirer
Last updated 02:41am (Mla time) 08/14/2006
Published on page A15 of the August 14, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
KURT VONNEGUT ONCE OBSERVED, “FOR SOME reason, the most vocal
Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears
in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in
public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t
heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes,
be posted anywhere.” Vonnegut was pointing out the basic immorality of
society’s self-proclaimed moral custodians. Hate the sin but love the
sinner? But that opens to a possible debate on what is sin.
How much easier, more certain and eminently satisfying to decree,
“Kill them all. God will know His own.” The result is the perversion of
the finer instincts of religion into a false trinity—faith, hope and
bigotry, setting aside charity which represents an inconvenient truth:
Christ was friend to prostitutes and tax collectors, and He debated
even with the devil. Must Christianity end with Christ?
Retired Supreme Court Justice Isagani Cruz says that his vigorous and vicious condemnation
of gays, lesbians and transgendered people is not supposed to incite
hatred and intolerance—or to be precise, that he is not invoking a
blanket condemnation of all gay people. He only objects to some, not
all. For example, he has nothing but the most generous and respectful
thoughts for those who conform to what he finds tasteful and tolerable
behavior. And what is tasteful and tolerable as far as his wounded
sensibilities are concerned? A minority meekly and absolutely
surrendering to the tyranny of the majority, a sub-culture reduced to
the subhuman, in which the individual is instructed to live out, every
day, a total repudiation of the self. Cruz demands the elimination of a
diverse and rich culture—one that is as much a mirror of society’s
larger complexities as it is an alternative to some of the worst
instincts and features of the broader culture for which he has stepped
forward as spokesman—because the minority displeases and disgusts him.
He would have me, and everyone else like me be a slave, a fugitive,
a hypocrite and, most of all, a coward. And I find that disgusting. I
find it neither reasonable nor acceptable. I do not even find it
understandable. Cruz does not understand us, does not want to, would be
unwilling to. Yet he says he hates only some, not all, of us, and
expects “some of us” to embrace and thank him?
For what? That he reserves his scorn only for hairdressers and
fashion designers? That he respects me, the writer, but heaps abuse on
someone else because that someone uses slang I don’t use, speaks louder
than I do, wears what I don’t wear—and those superficial differences
are the things that guarantee me (and those who behave otherwise)
Cruz’s respect?
I will not embrace him, not for that, much less shake his hand or
offer him the opportunity for civilized disagreement. For he is blind
to the civilization to which I belong, and to the fundamental identity
I share with those he despises. Whether we have a little learning or
not, whether we speak in the same manner or not, regardless of what we
wear and what mannerisms we choose to exhibit, we are the same, for in
the fundamental things—those we choose to love, to have relationships
with and with whom we aspire to share a life marked by a measure of
domestic bliss and emotional contentment—there is no difference. To
permit Cruz to make such distinctions is to grant him and all those
like him an intolerable—because it is fundamentally unjust—power to
define myself and those like me.
When he casts the law as an instrument for prosecution, persecution
and discrimination, he must be fought. That he discredits polite
behavior by portraying civilized discourse as a fancy disguise for his
uncritical obedience and intolerant enforcement of uniformity; that he
defames religion by turning it into an ideology of hate; that he makes
a mockery of filial piety by insisting that tyrannical instincts should
be cultivated among the elderly and enforced upon their direction—these
should inspire not pity for his moral dementia; these must provoke
anger. And condemnation.
To be different is to be held in suspicion. The nonconformist is a
subversive. Subversion and rebellion make societies become more
generous, more diverse, more compassionate—and an individual more free.
For the inability—or unwillingness—to see rebellion as a virtue and not
a flaw is what provokes the uncomprehending hostility that makes the
anxious herd stifle dissent and stamp out anything different. But
humanity is not a herd, and being human demands a vigilance against the
kind of provocations that start stampedes.
I will respect anyone’s convictions, but only to the extent you will
respect mine. Goodwill inspires the same; tolerance results in
cooperation. But I will not be told whom to love, whom to be friends
with, what culture to represent, what mannerisms and interests to adopt
and, much less, discard. I will not modify my behavior or limit my
pleasures merely to please Cruz or bigots like him. The respect gays,
lesbians and transgendered people experience is a brittle kind, but
hard-won. Far more has to be won, in terms of actual legislation or in
every sphere of our lives where discrimination virtually takes place
every day.
The behavior Cruz finds so obnoxious is the price he and everyone
else must pay for the pink triangles of the German concentration camps,
the labor camps and prison cells of Soviet Russia and Communist China
and Cuba, the merciless beatings and taunts endured by so many over so
long a time. It is his punishment for representing a society whose
instincts remain fundamentally murderous toward anyone different. If he
weren’t such a hate-monger, he might realize it’s no punishment at all,
and that society is all the better for the increased prominence of
gays.
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