“If you’re gay, follow the ray. If you’re straight, refuse to hate”
I was introduced, by a friend, to a relatively new TV series which has yet to hit the Philippines. Something I find very unlikely. It’s called “The L Word” and it’s about a group of lesbian friends and the lives they live. You can imagine what goes on from there. I spent the better part of my night and the wee hours of my morning finishing the 5th season. As you might deduce, I enjoyed the series, because it deals with the difficulties lesbians and lesbian couples face in the American culture. Although, I have to admit, I enjoyed the first and second season more than I did the first.
Initially, I was only slightly intrigued by the idea of a lesbian series and was watching it mostly out of curiosity. Considering the fact that the gay scene in the Philippines has just recently been accepted in society, more so for the Filipino male than the Filipino female, it opened my mind to worlds of possibilities. I was thinking about the grasp the Catholic church has on our country, you can pretty much say that they have us by the scruffs of our collars.
During our Bioethics class the other day, we discussed human sexuality and the only thing that kept going through my mind was what one of the characters from the L word said which is “Sexuality is fluid“. We discussed marriage and soon, the topic hovered on the probably legalization of Gay Marriages. I am rather proud of my generation. Everyone in my batch agreed that there was nothing wrong with Gay Marriage and that at the end of the day, love is still love. Then, our facilitator discussed some random, vague, point in the bible and moved on to something else before anyone else could get a word in.
What I don’t understand is why people tolerate hate? I mean, it begins in childhood, when we allow children to tease their friends, or we tease children calling them names such as “Fag, Gay, Bakla” and think it should be fine because we know better and at the end of the day, these are jokes but these kids develop the misconception that being gay is bad, dirty or unacceptable in society. We connote gay with things like Indecent, Loud, Makapal and mukha. It becomes something that is taglined to the idea of gay. (i.e. He’s so loud, that’s cause he’s gay)
I had a debate on Homosexuality in the army. I was the Adjudicator and the only defense they could come up with was the following:
Government: We should have gay people in the army because they are creative and they can think of new things. They like to create things.
Opposition: Gay people will be with the same sex and they will rape the people they are with. They will make everyone else Gay. They are also loud. The terrorists will know they are there and they will not be able to surprise them. They are “maarte” and will be difficult to deal with.
These were freshmen and I was in my 2nd year of Highschool. I made them stop after the first speakers from the Government and Opposition had said their pieces and changed the topic to another value-judgment debate which went better than this.
We are taught (or rather, I was taught) in school, that homosexuality is nearly synonymous as going to hell for being a sick fuck unless you find Jesus. I mean, isn’t that going overboard? On the extreme end of the spectrum, children are taught that homosexuals are dirty, are filthy because the way they copulate is unnatural, and these kids absorb what they are taught and develop a warped version of the teachings of the Bible where it becomes “okay to be prejudice against people who are different because God hates the kind of different they are”. How is that OK?!
I am far from being a homophobe, but I do respect other people’s belief. I mean, it’s fine for me, if a parent, would rather not have their children exposed to the Gay culture or Gay scene until they are mature enough to understand the concept that love comes in different forms, BUT what i cannot and will not tolerate are parents who teach their children to be ignorant.
I was talking to a friend the other day, he told me that it was fine if he had gay friends but he didn’t want his gay friends near his son. And I asked him why. And he said he didn’t want his son to turn gay. I mean, who thinks like that these days? Gay is not something transmissible.
I want to be able to be fair and be able to listen to people’s POVs regarding sexuality, but it gets so damn hard when people throw things from the Bible at me. I want to see my gay brothers and sisters legally married and happy with their partners. I want them to experience the kind of happiness I am privileged to experience. The kind of happiness that only comes because of my sexual orientation. I mean I was mulling around with the idea, that God could not possibly want a world where we condemn people because of the people they choose to love and the people they choose to share that love with. After all, God is love. I do not see Him denying that from people simply because when they fuck, no one gets pregnant. I mean, I’ve seen so many of my lesbian friends in long, monogamous relationships that outlast more of my heterosexual friends.
Kids see a man and a woman kissing and they go “awwww”. They see a man and another man or a woman and another woman kissing and they say “Yuck”. What is disgusting about that?
OUT and PROUD. I was thinking about my friend who is perfectly fine with being gay, but has to keep everything a secret because her girlfriend is not comfortable in letting other people know she’s gay. I asked my friend how she could stand it. How she could deny herself that and how she could deny who she was to other people. and the only thing she could tell me was ‘I love her and I don’t want to lose her”. These things. This is what I’m talking about. How society puts pressure on people to behave a certain way, to conform to a certain thing. How the pressure can affect people. I know a man, who has been gay his whole life, but ended up having a wife and 3 4 kids but is unhappy and wakes up everyday a wreck knowing his life is a lie, only because his parents would have disowned him had he been gay.
This whole post sounds a lot like word vomit and nothing comprehensive or cohesive with regards to what I really feel about Homosexuals. I guess my main point is:
Oneirophrenia 