Hits and Misses: The Real Issues behind LGBT News

A few days ago, a colleague in the civil society movement congratulated me for all the media exposure the LGBT Community was getting. He said TV and print media not only “picked up” on our LGBT news, but we were able to “sustain” it on air for quite some time. For someone who worked on migrant workers rights, he certainly knows what he’s talking about; because even for them, whose issues should’ve been constant fodder for the news, it is still quite hard to get media coverage sometimes.

Once upon a time, I would have believed the saying too; that whether it’s good or bad publicity, it’s STILL publicity, after all. But as we have learned throughout the years, sometimes media can be so “irresponsible” as to hype up and make so controversial such a small thing. In addition, “traditional” media would not even attempt to be politically correct and even reinforce negative stereotypes about LGBTs because that is “what sells”.

In the past weeks, features on Boy Abunda’s public support for Ladlad, the spate of gay killings now being documented by the Philippine Hate Crime Watch led by Marlon and Reighben, and the Baguio Pride celebration of a mass same-sex wedding got so much media mileage. For my part, with a human interest story on Rated K and the development in New York allowing same-sex marriage, I was also given my 15 minutes of fame for the last weekend of June.

As Vice-Chairperson of Ladlad, I know first-hand about all the difficulties we went through campaigning for Ladlad in the past elections. Tito Boy coming out to support the Filipino LGBT Community through Ladlad LGBT Partylist was probably one of the best things that came out of our “loss”. Besides using his own popularity to give Ladlad the exposure it needs through his own TV shows, he has been providing us the necessary resources to do the groundwork early for 2013, like providing us an office/headquarters and donating the proceeds of one of his endorsements. What more, his coming out in the open and serving as Ladlad’s Senior Adviser, has given us more credibility as a legitimate sector entitled to representation in Congress, and other LGBTs around the country now know about Ladlad and are willing to support us as well.

Once or twice, Tito Boy has spoken about other LGBT issues too, like the gay killings for example. For many years, murders of gays have been reported, but there has never been sufficient attention given to it by authorities. Police were always dismissive of these cases and categorized them as “robberies gone wrong” or engagements with male sex workers (call boys) which led to “misunderstandings about the rate of services.” Families were known to avoid any focus on their kin’s homosexuality because of embarrassment, and this attitude leads to cases not being pursued. Police also discontinue their investigations and leave these murders unresolved. For the LGBT Community, this issue has been the major consideration for a proposed “hate crime” bill similar to what are being passed in the USA.

After the initial forum conducted at the Metropolitan Community Church-Quezon City, where Marlon presented his initial inventory, Rainbow Rights Project and Ladlad sponsored a special human rights violations documentation training at ISIS International as a follow-up activity. QTV 11’s Brigada featured gay killings in one of their episodes, while Philippine Graphic magazine also released a special issue on the subject matter. This even prompted Anti-Discrimination bill sponsor Rep. Teddy Casino to also pass a resolution in Congress to investigate such cases of violence against Filipino LGBTs.

Meanwhile, as part of their annual June Pride celebrations, Baguio Pride Network in cooperation with the different resident pastors of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) held a mass gay wedding for eight same-sex couples in Baguio City. Obviously, this exercise was meant to bring to light just one other issue of Filipino LGBTs, the societal recognition and acceptance of their partnerships as legitimate and valid couplings entitled to respect and legal protection.

It was a happy surprise that it got front page exposure in a broadsheet, but since Baguio City is notorious for its rather “vocal” clergy, the bishops overreacted again calling it immoral and “kadiri”. But what is more embarrassing for Baguio City besides revealing itself as an Anti-LGBT locality, was the fact that city officials and councillors likewise joined the bandwagon of negativity and started calling it “illegal” and that they will pass a resolution “banning” such activity in the future. There were even threats of censuring all the MCC pastors who officiated the said weddings.

They totally missed the point. While the activity clearly had some very serious reasons behind it, as the original intention of all those who participated in it, this event was also a “gimmick” of sorts. Maybe the local officials had “no sense of humor” about it, or the media was just being “helpful” for exposing it, but the message was sadly lost in all the controversy.

Rev.Ceejay was forced to answer the issues of illegality and immorality in all his interviews as a seeming knee-jerk reaction to the city officials’ and bishops’ homophobic and discriminatory statements. Time and again, he had to tackle the rather “irrelevant at this point” questions about the way LGBTs are and if we can still change and become straights.

As I said during my own interviews, people cannot say they accept us as LGBTs and yet deny us the right to love someone and take him/her as our life partner. It is not enough that they acknowledge us as LGBT individuals because who we actually love, and that is a person of the same sex, is the single important aspect that defines us. So the Catholic Church statement of “love the sinner and hate the sin”, which “accepts” us as LGBT people but prohibits us from “practicing such a lifestyle”, just wouldn’t work. It is our same-sex relationships that comprises our most unique self-expression of gender and sexuality.

With the bishops spouting cries of ”immorality” once again, they seem not to get it through their thick skulls that nobody really cares about them imposing their Catholic self-righteousness on every Filipino, what with sexual harassment and child abuse cases within their ranks. Not every Filipino is Catholic after all, so they cannot claim to be the vanguards of morality for the whole country. Besides, there is also such a principle as “separation of State and Church” in our Constitution which they seem to have a penchant for violating. Talk about violating the laws of the land!

As for the alleged “illegality” of the same-sex wedding, nobody claimed it was “legal” after all. The pastors and the couples present there were all aware the ceremony would have no legal consequences whatsoever and never made representations to the contrary. The Holy Union wouldn’t need to be registered with the local civil registrar or NSO, and no one would get to change their civil status or legal surnames. But these couples were still willing to do their commitment ceremony publicly for the acknowledgement of their family and friends even if the greater majority of society doesn’t appreciate it. This was the real message that was the meant for the media to make noise about - why same-sex partners want their relationships recognized and respected so badly.

But hope springs eternal. Philippine media can still prove itself a supportive ally of the Filipino LGBT Community.