Comelec rejects petition of Ang Ladlad Party

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday rejected the petition of Ang Ladlad Party, which represents homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender individuals, to be registered as a sectoral party because of “immorality.”

In an eight-page resolution, Comelec Second Division presiding commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer and commissioners Lucenito Tagle and Elias Yusoph said Ang Ladlad’s petition is “dismissible on moral grounds.”

“(The) Petitioner defines Filipino lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community (as) marginalized and under-represented sector that is particularly disadvantaged because of their sexual orientation and gender identity… and proceeded to define sexual orientation as that which refers to a person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender, of the same gender or more than one gender,” the resolution said.

The commission said the definition of the represented sector “makes it crystal clear that (the) petitioner tolerates immorality which offends religious beliefs.”

The commissioners cited passages from the Bible – Romans 1:26-27 – and the Koran to illustrate their point.

Romans 1:26-27 reads: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.”

Comelec said the party’s petition also “collides” with Article 694 of the Civil Code which defines nuisance as “any act… that disregards decency or immorality” and Article 1306 which provides that “contracts whose cause object or purpose is contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order or public policy are inexistent and void from the beginning.”

The commission said the petition for registration does not conform to the Catholic faith.

“Should this Commission grant the petition, we will be exposing our youth to an environment that does not conform to the teachings of our faith. We are not condemning the LGBT but we cannot compromise the well-being of the greater number of our people, especially the youth,” the resolution said.

Ladlad president Danton Remoto condemned the decision “of the very old men” who showed “painfully obsolete ideas about homosexuality.” – With Rainier Allan Ronda, Reinir Padua, Katherine Adraneda