A firestorm on gay rights
March 15, 2004 | 12:00am
As usual, my last column about the lesbian and gay rights bill that got torpedoed in the Senate received responses enough to clog my e-mail. We’re talking about giving equal rights here, the same rights guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution in the Bill of Rights, but I still received a slew of hate mail. On the other hand, I also received discourses that are, like Fernando Poe Jr., "sincere," and so they made me think.
One such e-mail came from Freddie R. Santos. He said: "With regard to the gay-rights bill, I surmise the following reasons may have much to do with its failure to get final approval (this time around, anyway). First, in Metro Manila at least, the physical-abuse cases against gays are rarely recorded, giving the impression, falsely or not, that they are rare. Second, gay entertainers are projected to be so successful, so welcome, so relied upon in showbiz that if anything, the general bias seems to be for them rather than against.
"In that sense, media is the culprit. The broadsheets do not seem to consider lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual articles to be significant. Check out today’s downloadable issues, your column is the only one with any comment on the issue. On the other hand, TV cannot seem to have enough of screaming queens, giving viewers the impression that any fag is a drag – and a well-paid one at that. And the movies? My goodness, between Dolphy and Roderick Paulate, how many millions were made [that portrayed gay men]?"
Mr. Santos hammers the nail right on its head (and please, no pun intended here, Holy Week is coming). But many hate crimes against gay men are under-reported. In 1997 I was managing a bake shop and my baker went to Divisoria at 4 a. m. to buy supplies. I told him to leave at 6 a. m., when day has begun, but he could never be bothered. When he got off at España to change jeepneys, a young man accosted him and said he was willing to be hired for sex. My baker walked away but the young beast, who was high on drugs, followed and beat up my baker, who fought back. When the cops came, the beastling said my baker blew him and did not pay, per their agreement. And guess who landed in jail? My baker.
I was in the middle of class when somebody sent me a message in my pager. He said he just got out of jail in the Balic-Balic Police Station and my baker was there. So I went there and demanded that my baker be freed, or else I would sue the police station commander and his men for illegal detention beyond the mandated 12 hours, without charging my baker in court. The frightened cop called the beastling, who called his uncle, another cop. When the cop-uncle came and called my baker a faggot, I told him, "It’s your nephew, who was high on cough syrup, who beat up my baker when my baker turned down your nephew’s offer of sex." The cops in the station and the cop-uncle were all shaking their heads and nay-saying everything until I said, "Okay, then, let’s all just go to court." The cop-uncle turned pale and said maybe we could just patch things up and forget all about it? I said "no," but my baker said it was all right. He told me later that the cop-uncle looked like one of those berdugos and would surely run after him and slit his neck. I wanted to counter, "Only if you allow him," but I looked at my baker and saw the fear in his eyes so I just dropped the issue. My baker signed a waiver that everything, everything was all right, the way it is, I am sure, for the thousands of other unreported and under-reported cases of police abuse of gay men.
And what about gay entertainers? The point here is that if you are gay and you are in showbiz, it’s like a fish in water. Among the broadsheets, only the Philippine STAR offers regular news and commentary about lesbian and gay issues outside the Pride March Week. TV is a wasteland. The people at ABS-CBN Channel 2 often wonder where I got the nerve to call them to task for their tabloid reportage that fills the country with so much dead air. Only GMA Channel 7 is hospitable in this regard. In fact, my friend Jessica Soho said they are open to a gender-sensitivity workshop that I can put together so her news staff could deal with lesbian and gay issues from a wider frame. Moreover, I hope Che-che Lazaro, who has now moved to ABC Channel 5, will continue with her generally balanced commentary on lesbian and gay issues.
What about films? A few years ago, a director-friend of mine asked me to write a screenplay with a gay theme. So-called gay movies were being shown and were making money, so why not make a screenplay for him? I said "Yes" on one condition – there would be no scene in a gay bar, showing young men with only Band-Aid on their foreheads, moving like snakes on the stage. I’ve seen many so-called gay movies with scenes like this sandwiched in the middle of their films, and I wanted to show another side of gay life. I myself only go to clubs with macho dancers when I have a foreigner-friend who wants to see these strip shows, which is like once or twice a year. I wanted to show gay men in loving, consensual relationships. I wanted to show how the days could pass in a blaze of happiness, then turn into embers glowing red, then slipping into darkness. But the fierce hope remains that there will be another one, since what is life if not what the lesbian poet Sappho called "a beautiful pain?"
But when my director told the producer, the fat, old capitalist said, "No." There you go, I said, then wrote Gaydar, my next gay book.
Ang Lunduyan, the gay group that I helped establish, was also asked to co-produce Duda (Doubt) the first digital film about gay life in the country. But I was dismayed when I read the script, which begins with an orgy on the rocky shores of Puerta Galera. Still out of Christian charity I read, but could not distinguish whether the mode used was realistic or postmodernist. So I sat down with my friend who wrote and later directed it. With the infinite patience of a teacher, I discussed the script with him page by page, suggesting ways to revise it, to tighten its focus, to deepen its characterization. When it was shown at SM Megamall I paid good money to watch it, and was disappointed when not a single page of the script was changed. So there you go, I said, then wrote Buhay Bading, my gay book in Tagalog.
I would also like to thank Dodie S. Garcia who wrote me an e-mail explaining his side as a Christian regarding gay rights. I’ve already answered all the points he raised in my two earlier books, Seduction & Solitude: Essays and X-Factor: Tales Outside the Closet, so I won’t dwell on them anymore. Let me just answer his last paragraph. He said: "If you are gay, this letter is not meant to condemn you or the rest who are. If not, then I’m sure you wouldn’t want your children to be one. If they are then they need help, not by giving them the right to be one but by planting the righteousness of God in them."
Since I’ve published many gay books, then I must be gay. I also adopted a baby girl who just turned two years old last week. Luigi, my bubbly nephew, said that my little Mika hates frilly dresses and dolls, but loves to wear jeans and brandish a toy guy. Whoa! And then my nephew, all of nine years old, teased me, that we are now "complete – a gay uncle, and his adopted daughter who might turn out to be a lesbian." To which I just smiled, then watched my Mika, her face an open flower touched by the sun, swagger down the yard under God’s wide, blue sky.
Comments can be sent to dremoto@ateneo.edu.
One such e-mail came from Freddie R. Santos. He said: "With regard to the gay-rights bill, I surmise the following reasons may have much to do with its failure to get final approval (this time around, anyway). First, in Metro Manila at least, the physical-abuse cases against gays are rarely recorded, giving the impression, falsely or not, that they are rare. Second, gay entertainers are projected to be so successful, so welcome, so relied upon in showbiz that if anything, the general bias seems to be for them rather than against.
"In that sense, media is the culprit. The broadsheets do not seem to consider lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual articles to be significant. Check out today’s downloadable issues, your column is the only one with any comment on the issue. On the other hand, TV cannot seem to have enough of screaming queens, giving viewers the impression that any fag is a drag – and a well-paid one at that. And the movies? My goodness, between Dolphy and Roderick Paulate, how many millions were made [that portrayed gay men]?"
Mr. Santos hammers the nail right on its head (and please, no pun intended here, Holy Week is coming). But many hate crimes against gay men are under-reported. In 1997 I was managing a bake shop and my baker went to Divisoria at 4 a. m. to buy supplies. I told him to leave at 6 a. m., when day has begun, but he could never be bothered. When he got off at España to change jeepneys, a young man accosted him and said he was willing to be hired for sex. My baker walked away but the young beast, who was high on drugs, followed and beat up my baker, who fought back. When the cops came, the beastling said my baker blew him and did not pay, per their agreement. And guess who landed in jail? My baker.
I was in the middle of class when somebody sent me a message in my pager. He said he just got out of jail in the Balic-Balic Police Station and my baker was there. So I went there and demanded that my baker be freed, or else I would sue the police station commander and his men for illegal detention beyond the mandated 12 hours, without charging my baker in court. The frightened cop called the beastling, who called his uncle, another cop. When the cop-uncle came and called my baker a faggot, I told him, "It’s your nephew, who was high on cough syrup, who beat up my baker when my baker turned down your nephew’s offer of sex." The cops in the station and the cop-uncle were all shaking their heads and nay-saying everything until I said, "Okay, then, let’s all just go to court." The cop-uncle turned pale and said maybe we could just patch things up and forget all about it? I said "no," but my baker said it was all right. He told me later that the cop-uncle looked like one of those berdugos and would surely run after him and slit his neck. I wanted to counter, "Only if you allow him," but I looked at my baker and saw the fear in his eyes so I just dropped the issue. My baker signed a waiver that everything, everything was all right, the way it is, I am sure, for the thousands of other unreported and under-reported cases of police abuse of gay men.
And what about gay entertainers? The point here is that if you are gay and you are in showbiz, it’s like a fish in water. Among the broadsheets, only the Philippine STAR offers regular news and commentary about lesbian and gay issues outside the Pride March Week. TV is a wasteland. The people at ABS-CBN Channel 2 often wonder where I got the nerve to call them to task for their tabloid reportage that fills the country with so much dead air. Only GMA Channel 7 is hospitable in this regard. In fact, my friend Jessica Soho said they are open to a gender-sensitivity workshop that I can put together so her news staff could deal with lesbian and gay issues from a wider frame. Moreover, I hope Che-che Lazaro, who has now moved to ABC Channel 5, will continue with her generally balanced commentary on lesbian and gay issues.
What about films? A few years ago, a director-friend of mine asked me to write a screenplay with a gay theme. So-called gay movies were being shown and were making money, so why not make a screenplay for him? I said "Yes" on one condition – there would be no scene in a gay bar, showing young men with only Band-Aid on their foreheads, moving like snakes on the stage. I’ve seen many so-called gay movies with scenes like this sandwiched in the middle of their films, and I wanted to show another side of gay life. I myself only go to clubs with macho dancers when I have a foreigner-friend who wants to see these strip shows, which is like once or twice a year. I wanted to show gay men in loving, consensual relationships. I wanted to show how the days could pass in a blaze of happiness, then turn into embers glowing red, then slipping into darkness. But the fierce hope remains that there will be another one, since what is life if not what the lesbian poet Sappho called "a beautiful pain?"
But when my director told the producer, the fat, old capitalist said, "No." There you go, I said, then wrote Gaydar, my next gay book.
Ang Lunduyan, the gay group that I helped establish, was also asked to co-produce Duda (Doubt) the first digital film about gay life in the country. But I was dismayed when I read the script, which begins with an orgy on the rocky shores of Puerta Galera. Still out of Christian charity I read, but could not distinguish whether the mode used was realistic or postmodernist. So I sat down with my friend who wrote and later directed it. With the infinite patience of a teacher, I discussed the script with him page by page, suggesting ways to revise it, to tighten its focus, to deepen its characterization. When it was shown at SM Megamall I paid good money to watch it, and was disappointed when not a single page of the script was changed. So there you go, I said, then wrote Buhay Bading, my gay book in Tagalog.
I would also like to thank Dodie S. Garcia who wrote me an e-mail explaining his side as a Christian regarding gay rights. I’ve already answered all the points he raised in my two earlier books, Seduction & Solitude: Essays and X-Factor: Tales Outside the Closet, so I won’t dwell on them anymore. Let me just answer his last paragraph. He said: "If you are gay, this letter is not meant to condemn you or the rest who are. If not, then I’m sure you wouldn’t want your children to be one. If they are then they need help, not by giving them the right to be one but by planting the righteousness of God in them."
Since I’ve published many gay books, then I must be gay. I also adopted a baby girl who just turned two years old last week. Luigi, my bubbly nephew, said that my little Mika hates frilly dresses and dolls, but loves to wear jeans and brandish a toy guy. Whoa! And then my nephew, all of nine years old, teased me, that we are now "complete – a gay uncle, and his adopted daughter who might turn out to be a lesbian." To which I just smiled, then watched my Mika, her face an open flower touched by the sun, swagger down the yard under God’s wide, blue sky.
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