I'm a Baby!

After blogging about a wonderful Philipppine Daily Inquirer issue, isa na naman ang lumabas at pag-uusapan ng pagkarami-rami. Unfortunately, hindi ko nabasa ‘to so kung meron sa inyong PDI August 12, 2006 na nakatambak lang d’yan, ibalato n’yo na lang sa’kin.

I’m talking about the PDI that carried former Supreme Court Justice Isagani Cruz’s article entitle “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel.”

By now, much has been written about this kaya hindi na’ko magko-comment because so many have done so in ways far better than I could ever have – from Manuel L. Quezon III who proudly came out in his counter-article (Hmmm…maybe I should ask him out) hanggang sa mga tulad kong mumunting bloggers. Just yesterday a fellow Broad Ass alumnus Amiel Martin Cabanlig published “A Retort to Isaganiz Cruz” in his Manila Times Column (On the Prowl, 16 August 2006, The Manila Times, Life&Times, C3).

By this time siguro dugu-dugo na na’ng dila ni Retired Justice Isagani Cruz hehe kaya saludo ako sa inyong lahat at sa mga kaibigan kong tulad ni Nonie Tobias who once declared in her blog her “great respect for the homosexual talent” and another Broad Ass alumnus Delfin for helping spread these articles around through the internet. Cheryl Ingles also carried these articles in her Friendster Blog but I’m posting them here anyway.

Ang kokomentan ko na lang ay ang auxiliary issues na nauungkat sa usapaing ito:

1. Isa pang patunay ang opinyon ni Cruz na hindi pa ganap na tanggap ang mga bakla, tomboy at transgender sa Pilipinas. No less than the words of a learned, well-placed man of the law have proven this. Ngayong nakikita na nating nanunuot ang isipiritu ng bigotry at diskriminasyon maging sa mga matuturing nang edukado’t makapangyarihan, all the more na kailangang magkaisa ang LGBT community at ang kanilang mga supporters upang labanan ito.

2. Sa malayang palitan ng mga opinyon, naalala ko ang Philosophy teacher sa UP na si Prof. Agerico de Villa na nagsabing imposibleng hindi magiging great country ang Pilipinas, eh, we have a very strong Athenian concept of democracy – that all opinions can be expressed. Ang Gresya raw ay nagsimula sa mga watak-watak na city-states na ‘di naglaon ay naging pundasyon ng modern civilization dahil sa kanilang konsepto ng demokrasya (Incidentally, the Greeks considered homosexual love as the greatest form of love). Ang Estados Unidos din ay isa lamang struggling colony pero naging superpower dahil dito. Kahit dati pang Supreme Court Justice si Cruz, walang makapipigil sa kaninuman na ihayag ang kanyang sumasalungat na opinyon.

3. Hindi lang ang page-express ng saloobin ang demokrasya, maging ang mga pamamaraan ng pamamahayagan nade-democraticize na rin. Hindi na lamang ang mga kolumnistang tulad nina Quezon at Cabanlig ang napakikinggan. Dahil sa blog, kahit sino makakapagpahayag at mapakikinggan. Importante ‘to ngayon dahil bagama’t ang ganitong diskusyon ay bihirang matatalakay sa market-driven TV set-up sa bansa, hindi pa rin ito tuluyang nababale-wala dahil meron pang ibang media upang mapag-usapan ito. Ngayon, mukhang hindi na rin imposible na ang TV industry, balang-araw, matulad sa nangyayari ngayong democratization sa film industry. Nagiging affordable ang technology, nagkakaroon ng funding, at ang mga tema na dati’y hindi tinatalakay ng profit-oriented studios ngayo’y napapalabas na (albeit to limited audiences but we’re getting there).

Retired Justice Isagani Cruz aside, things are still looking up.


***
UNA KONG NABALITAAN ANG ISYUNG ITO SA ISANG MASS EMAIL NI NONIE…HERE’S HER MESSAGE:
Below is ISAGANI CRUZ' chauvinistic, disgusting, narrow-minded, pompous, self-righteous hate article against gays and MANUEL L QUEZON III's vindictive reply.
Mabuhay ka Manuel L. Quezon III! Mabuhay ang mga bading!

SEPARATE OPINION
Separate Opinion : ‘Don we now our gay apparel’
By Isagani Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 12 August 2006

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.

----- o -----
THE LONG VIEW
The Long View: The Grand Inquisitor
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer, First posted 02:39am (Manila Time) Aug 14, 2006
Editor's Note: 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. 


***

SI DELFIN NAMAN AY NAGING CHRONICLER NG MGA ARTICLES NA’YUN SA BROAD ASS ALUMNI EGROUPS. AT ITO ANG KANYANG HULING POST, MGA BLOGS CONDEMNING CRUZ’S ARTICLE. ANDITO RIN ANG KANYANG SHORT MESSAGE:

Not even a deadline for a presentation can divert my attention from Cruz's appalling article. This will be my last post re the series 
though. Thanks! 


-----------------------------------------



Raise Your Voice (A Blog Entry)
August 14th, 2006 at 9:54 pm (gay, hate, homophobia, mind fuck, 
discrimination, bigotry, pdi, philippine daily inquirer, isagani 
cruz, old fart) 


Dear Mr. Isagani Cruz,
I applaud you for your column entitled, `Don we now our gay 
apparel'. It's creatively titled I must say.

Your musings of the glorious past, a past where "homosexuals were 
still mocked and derided", is truly something to be missed. I can 
still remember with great fondness my elementary days when one of my 
classmates was always beaten-up to a pulp because he was gay. My 
classmates hid his backpack, took his lunch money, never allowed him 
to join in our games, taunted and ridiculed him until he'd go home 
with his tear ducts dried out for ceaseless crying. After that 
school year, he transferred schools and we never heard from him 
again. Come to think of it, my classmates never really knew if he 
was gay. All they knew was that he has always been a bit girlish as 
compared to our macho swagger. But we decided that he was, so we 
made sure that his life will be a living hell for being different.

But fret not, my dear respected ex-judge, for there's still hope for 
our future. Although you observed that homosexuals continue to 
recruit members to join their ranks, many also continue to support 
the long-held tradition that homosexuals are a menace to our society 
and must be eradicated with extreme measures.

As long as many hold on to the idea that men – real men – still 
reign supreme over all others, we are ok.

As long as our vagrancy laws are used by our allies – the policemen –
to book homosexuals and extort money, harass and humiliate them 
then we are more than ok.

As long as our current Philippine laws do not punish anyone who 
discriminate people because of their sexual orientation, then we are 
protected.

As long as companies continue to favor us – real men – for jobs not 
because we are qualified but because of being men then we'll 
continue to reign over those who are more qualified but are women or 
are homosexuals.

We must mobilize all the real men of the world (and of course we 
need women too to make sure that we'll be well-fed and taken care 
of) and raise our arms against this menace that tarnishes our 
otherwise perfect society.

But before we do that, what does it mean to be a REAL MAN again? 
Please enlighten me.



Yours in our fight for supremacy,
The Devil in Haste

A comment to Devil in Haste's blog:



After his long tirade about how homosexuality is now gradually 
gaining acceptance among the general (international even) populace, 
he then made the following conclusions:

1. Is our population getting to be predominantly pansy?

Non sequitur. How does tolerance and acceptance of gays tantamount 
to the nation "getting predominantly pansy"? I understand pansy to 
mean as a disparaging term for a man who is considered effeminate or 
to be blatant, a deragotory term for a homosexual man. This Isagani 
fellow seems to think that accepting homosexuals as REAL people, 
possessing the same rationality and feelings as anyone else, and 
giving them the allowance to celebrate their sexuality and gender 
orientation would cause the rest of the "normal" males to be less 
manly? Care to back up that bald assertion of yours using logic, 
reason, evolutionary psychology and sociology, and neuroscience, 
your honor?

2. 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?

Look here. He calls the virility of males and the grace of females 
as "diluted" virtues. I am fairly certain this isn't what he meant, 
but he worded his sentiments incorrectly. Again, he erroneously 
maintains that homosexuals can change (by sheer influence, as 
implyingly alleged) a persons inate, natural sexual orientation 
configuration. The obviousness of sexual orientation being not a 
choice seems to elude many people. Besides, fusion of male and 
female traits can have good repercussions. A combination of a 
woman's hardwired ability to clearly articulate her ideas and 
excellent prowess in the language with the male's preset aptitude 
for mathematics and logic. There is no logical conclusions that can 
lead us to declare that such fusion of virtues would yield 
to "diluted" (corrupted) virtue from his stated premises.

3. 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.

The black and white mentality lacks the flexibility to deal with the 
multi-colored facets of reality. Another flagrant logical fallacy he 
committed is to create a false dichotomy of strong and weak and 
equate strong with "male" and "weak" with female. This is what he is 
implying in those statements. My derivation is not unwarranted and 
is supported by his not-so-subtle implication that homosexuality "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."
He calls men strong and women weak. Sexism anyone? Then he went on 
to say that homosexuals are somewhat in between. So homosexuals are 
superior than women for they are a little above the weak and a 
little less than the strong?

A question remains. What logical and evidential proof does he have 
that made him arrive to such conclusions? All he has are mere 
rhetorics. Loud rants posessing no substance. I can't believe this 
person, exhibiting such flawed logical deliberation, was even a 
judge.

4. Be alert lest the Philippine flag be made of delicate lace and 
adorned with embroidered frills.

Which I take to mean that the Filipino men are in danger of losing 
their manhood by accepting a person for who they truly are and 
allowing them to grow and express themselves honestly. Here's a news 
flash for you: gays can be REAL men as well without sacrificing 
their genuine identity. This judge values dishonesty by applauding 
those in the closet and discreet ones and telling them to remain 
that way. He would rather have them lie to themselves lest they 
trigger a cataclysmic pansy-fication of the nation… no I would dare 
say he thinks this too would have extensive disastrous impact of 
global proportions.

His honor apparently has no fashion sense 

Be glad that his illusionary "harm" purportedly caused by the gay 
community that would befell this nation is just that - an illusion.

- The Prize
A manly straight Filipino 

And one witty two-liner:

He refers to his heterosexual male offspring as 'all macho'. Geez, 
even a straight man like me can say that that statement is 'so 
frigging gay.'

# posted by rey agapay @ 1:52 AM