THE PROPOSED Anti-Discrimination Act of 2005 (House Bill 634) has received flak from pro-life groups. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has called it “immoral.”
“If same-sex unions were to be legalized, the concept of marriage would be shattered, to the detriment of the common good,” CBCP warned, echoeing the Vatican’s stand on the issue.
“By putting homosexual unions on a legal plane equal to that of marriage and the family, the state acts against and in contradiction to its duties. For the state to grant legal standing to homosexual unions is for it to fail in its primary duty to promote and defend marriage as an institution essential to the common good.”
Veronica Pineda, organizer of the pro-life Subtle Attacks Against the Family Explained, said the proposed legislation is immoral since it countenances same-sex marriage.
Paragraph H, Section 4, of HB 634 makes it illegal to “deny an application for a license, clearance, certification or any other documents issued by the government authorities or other entities, on the basis of the applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The House Bill has also defined sexual orientation as “the direction of emotional and sexual attraction or conduct,” which can be “towards people of the same sex (homosexual orientation) or towards people of both sexes (bisexual orientation) or towards people of both the opposite sex (heterosexual orientation).”
“Subsequently, the approval of the bill will grant gays and lesbians documents including marriage licenses,” Pineda told the Varsitarian.
The group also criticized the bill, which was introduced by Akbayan Party-list Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales, for “perfectly playing with words” just to mislead the people.
“If we will truly examine what the bill proposes, we will find out that behind its good advocacy lies its hidden agenda of deceiving the people while overtaxing them,” she said. Kris P. Bayos
