MY FRIENDS and I were catching the last full show of Spiderman 2 when, overwhelmed by the long queue, we lined up for a movie with a faster-moving ticket line. The movie was Wolves of Kolmer, an entry to the 2nd International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
The “Pink Festival” reminds me of the squabble at MTRCB on gay marriage, and the debates in my recent class in Marriage and the Family on why the Family Code defines marriage as only between “a man and a woman.” Perhaps, years from now, table talks in alumni gatherings would not be on whether one got married, but which sex a person married.
We should thank the framers of our Family Code for sparing us from American pie politics—sex issues sandwiched between warring liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. They’re now debating on a proposed 28th Constitutional Amendment (Federal Marriage Amendment) that will make marriage in all US States only between man and woman, as China did in 1999. Last July 22, the US House of Representatives voted 233-194 in favor of the Marriage Protection Act, a precedent for the amendment vote in September.
Much of the hubbub surrounding the same-sex marriage debate is the generalization that all homosexuals entertain the idea, so that non-supporters are “homophobic.” But there are gays who don’t support the stuff, and it would be oxymoronic to call them homophobic.
In Canada in fact, among those that opposed the legalization of gay marriage was the gay group HOPE (Homosexuals Opposed to Pride Extremism). In an affidavit before the British Columbia Supreme Court, HOPE founder John McKellar said, “Contrary to media and public perception, most gays and lesbians neither need nor want gay marriage. The pop-culture facilely equates homosexuality with heterosexuality outside the question of human psychology, and the biological reality that the two are not the same.”
The issue of course is sensitive, and not just a setback from custom, partisanship, or religion. Family members are affected. Even health firms take issue for sexual activities said to pose risks of infections and hepatitis (I leave both to blood banks to explain).
Others say it’s but a question of discrimination. But I don’t think so. Discrimination arises when there is unlike treatment of parties in like situations, which is not the case between hetero- and homosexual unions. By nature and effect they are different, and real distinctions need to be considered in any honest discussion.
Gay or straight, we all came from a father and a mother, unless one’s a clone. Our biological parents are not two men or women, or a group. Society secures its foundation in marriage when it contemplates ideal conditions for procreation and socialization, based on natural laws that no amount of nomenclature can change. Marriage arises from a sense that one needs a complement, and the sexual split between male and female is no accident for this.
I agree that marriages should be based ultimately on love, but then, not just any love, unless we have to make for incest and the other philiae too. In marriage, even love is not enough.
Despite these, homosexual couples already have the means to avail for legal arrangements other than matrimony. Watching movies from the Pink Festival opens one’s mind to accept the rather “closeted” reality. But still, one need accept that in life, not all things can be pink. Some matters are black and white.
