Copy of the controversial column that had the LGBT community up in arms:
SEPARATE OPINION
‘Don we now our gay apparel’
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.
and more Hate:
SEPARATE OPINION
Neither here nor there
Published on page A10 of the August 20, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IF I had known that Manuel Quezon III was gay, I would have desisted from writing that column last week on homosexuals out of respect for a fellow columnist. But now that he has retorted angrily and called me a bigot among other names, I have no choice but to reply.
I started that column with the caution that it was not intended as an attack against homosexuals in general and did not include “those who 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.”
As Mr. Quezon himself does not consider himself among the exceptions, he would be what we lawyers call a “proper party,” or one who is directly injured. In fact, he appears to be severely wounded by my remarks and is hemorrhaging profusely. He, therefore, has a right to react to my “insults” in the waspish manner he saw fit.
He calls me a hate-monger for deriding the vulgar practices of his kind and says I have no right to say what is tasteless and intolerable. Who has—he? Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that freedom of speech includes not only the right to express the thought that agrees with us but also the thought that we abhor. Voltaire was grandiloquent: “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Criticism is normal in the free society and is available to everyone right or wrong. The ideas that may be expressed under this freedom are not confined only to those that are sympathetic or acceptable, for that would make the freedom more shadow than substance. To be really meaningful, it should permit the articulation of even the unorthodox view, though it is hostile to or scorned by others. One of the purposes of this freedom, in fact, is to invite dispute.
If I do not appreciate the paintings of Picasso, any one who disagrees with me may say so and explain his reasons. But he cannot attack me personally for criticizing his idol. Mr. Quezon compares me to the tyrants in the police states where unacceptable identity or thought is systematically exterminated. In the free society, ideas are countered with ideas, not pejorative names. For criticizing his kind, Mr. Quezon likens me to the Nazis and the Reds and brands me a hate-monger.
Hate is not per se objectionable as Mr. Quezon may imply. Jesus Christ hated sinners and angrily drove the merchants and money changers from the holy temple they were desecrating. Was he a hate-monger for doing so? When Winston Churchill called on his countrymen to resist the enemy with all their blood, sweat, toil and tears, was he a hate-monger in the despicable sense of the phrase? That is what Mr. Quezon would call me for criticizing his kind.
I am a hate-monger against grafters, murderers, rapists and other criminals, but I only dislike the coarse homosexuals he defends, as is his right. Also disagreeable to me are straight persons who wear loud clothes, flunkies, hypocrites, humbugs and other unpleasant figures, male and female, in our imperfect society. I have the right to criticize them even as they have the right to reply in the common exercise of our freedom of expression.
It all depends on what and whom you hate. If I criticize homosexuals who disgrace their sex with their tasteless practices and appearance, any one among them can rise in defense and say why they should not be called obnoxious. But not in an obnoxious manner.
Mr. Quezon faults me for disagreeing with some practices of his kind that I find intolerable and insists that they have the fundamental right “to 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.”
Who’s interfering with your romances? As long as you are not violating the law, you are free with your liaisons, and I for one do not pry into your amorous affairs. Nor do I want to.
The important thing is that you have no right to demand that I agree with your pleasures or to forbid me from criticizing your “emotional contentment” if they offend the public interest. You cannot claim a preferred treatment because you are what you are even as you say you should be treated like the rest of the people despite what you are.
Finally, rejecting my reservation that my criticisms are only for the distasteful among you, you piously declare: “I will not embrace him, not for that, much less shake his hand or offer him the opportunity for civilized disagreement.” That opportunity is not yours to give, Mr. Quezon, and as for not embracing me—thank God
