LADLAD CRIES FOUL ON BANNING OF GAY PERFORMERS IN PUERTO GALERA

THE partylist for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Filipinos, Ladlad cried foul on the alleged banning of gay performers in Puerto Galera. The party has called for a dialogue with the local officials in the island if the news report were true.

“I will personally visit Puerto Galera and have a dialogue with the local officials about this matter,” said Ms. Bemz Benedito, first Congressional nominee of the group.

Last Sunday, Ladlad members reacted to news reports saying that bar owners were complaining to the local government officials of Puerto Galera for disallowing gay talents to perform in a show due to lewdness. The owners reportedly were alarmed because their coffers will surely get affected because their patrons are always looking for the gay performers.

“This is a clear violation of their right to work,” Benedito said. “Ladlad will oppose the approval of this measure,” she added.

On the same report, the chairman of one of the towns of Puerto Galera already refuted the claims of the bar owners, saying that they were only reprimanding the gay performers to tone down the language they are using on stage.

Ladlad further said, the remedy is an ordinance to prohibit children and an age cap on who to allow in entering such comedy bars. Prejudice must not set in this case especially to gay performers.

“In a comedy bar, children should not be allowed because of the sensitivity of the language being used in this kind of entertainment. Besides you cannot control the performers on what to say and do on stage,” Benedito stressed. “In television, you have an agency that reviews and classifies programs that suits the right age of its viewers,” Benedito added.

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U.N. Report Calls On Countries to End Anti-LGBT Discrimination

Imagine a world with out discrimination.

I just hope that all countries will listen since there are a lot of cases of discrimination leading to verbal, emotional, and physical abuse because of people's sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). It would be a good start but of course, this will stir debates worldwide. For sure, the Catholic Church will not easily agree on this, specially here in the Philippines where CBCP is blocking the inclusion of SOGI in the Anti-Discrimination Bill. The United Nations' stand on diminishing the LGBT discrimination can be used to strengthen and hasten the lobbying of the Anti-Discrimination Bill in our country and hopefully, be passed in no time. 

Source: http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/12/15/UN_Report_Calls_on_Countries_to_End_Anti-LGBT_Discrimination/

U.N. Report Calls On Countries to End Anti-LGBT Discrimination

By Julie Bolcer

A report released Thursday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights calls on countries to abolish laws that criminalize homosexuality and to include sexual orientation and gender identity in comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation, among other recommendations.

Commissioned by a historic resolution on anti-LGBT discrimination passed by the UN Human Rights Council in June, the first-of-its-kind report from Navanethem Pillay, the U.N.’s top human rights official, provides an overview of discrimination and violence around the world, including in the United States. The 25-page report reviews applicable international standards and obligations before documenting the current status of anti-LGBT discrimination and violence, followed by a list of recommendations based in international human rights law.

“In all regions, people experience violence and discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” says the introduction of the report. “In many cases, even the perception of homosexuality or transgender identity puts people at risk. Violations include – but are not limited to – killings, rape and physical attacks, torture, arbitrary detention, the denial of rights to assembly, expression and information, and discrimination in employment, health and education.”

“Violence against LGBT persons tends to be especially vicious compared to other bias-motivated crimes,” said the report, citing work from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

While noting that more than 10 countries including the United States have moved to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality since 2000, the report points out that 76 countries retain laws criminalizing people for sexual orientation and gender identity. The death penalty may be applied for consensual homosexual conduct in at least five countries.

Saying that “a pattern of human rights violations emerges that demands a response,” the report in conclusion called on member states, which it said often overlook such incidents, to act with a list of eight recommendations. Among the recommendations is to, “repeal laws used to criminalize individuals on grounds of homosexuality for engaging in consensual same-sex sexual conduct, and harmonize the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual conduct; ensure that other criminal laws are not used to harass or detain people based on their sexuality or gender identity and expression, and abolish the death penalty for offences involving consensual sexual relations.”

The report also calls for member states to “enact comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that includes discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity among prohibited grounds and recognizes intersecting forms of discrimination; ensure that combating discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity is included in the mandates of national human rights institutions.”

The High Commissioner recommended that the U.N. Human Rights Council keep up to date about violence and discrimination linked to sexual orientation and gender identity, and encouraged investigations and reports within the U.N. system to continue.

Advocates hailed the report, released just one week after the Obama administration announced steps to more fully integrate LGBT human rights into its foreign policy. The White House issued a presidential memorandum and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a U.N. audience in Geneva that LGBT rights are human rights.

“This is a groundbreaking U.N. effort that restates international law and makes it clear that criminalizing people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is a fundamental denial of their human rights and human dignity. So, too, are acts of violence and discrimination,” said Marc Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality. “Based on the standards articulated in this UN document, all countries, including our own, still have more to do to fully recognize the human rights of their LGBT citizens. The report will be debated at a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in March, and with South Africa leading the discussion, the March presentation will ensure that this report guides the work of the U.N.’s human rights experts worldwide.”

Jessica Stern, acting executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, said, “The report is a tribute to all of the activists who have fought for recognition of homophobic violence and transphobic discrimination over decades, often in the face of extreme hostility. It will serve as an invaluable aid to each one of us who seeks to advance LGBT rights – not only at the United Nations but in cities and towns around the world.”

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Caroling Againts Discrimination

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) announces their disapproval about the inclusion of the "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity" and want it taken out of the Anti Discrimination Bill since this will promote "Same Sex Marriages" in the Philippines and would punish Catholic Priests if they will refuse to officiate same sex weddings.

Contrary to this belief, the Anti-Discrimination Bill or Senate Bill 2814 (The Anti-Ethnic or Racial Profiling and Discrimination Act of 2011) does not include the legalization of same sex marriage hence it focuses on the equal treatment of all people regardless of their race, religion, and gender preferences.

After hearing this news, many LGBT rights advocates were disappointed with the statement of the church and wanted to start a movement againts the stand of CBCP. The passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill is the focus of the different LGBT organizations in the Phillippines because this will lessen the oppression of the LGBT people in the country. There was a rumored Pride March that will be conducted but was not pushed through. However, the LGBT advocates, led by Ladlad Partylist, went caroling at CBCP to protest instead and carried banners saying "“All We Want For Christmas is our Human Rights.”

According to Danton Remoto, the chairman emeritus of Ladlad Partylist once said, "The CBCP’s proposition is lamentable, defective and thoughtless because it claims that being LGBT is a choice, which makes them ineligible for being protected under the law." The LGBT organizations promises to continue in their different rallies to ensure that the sexual orientation and gender identity be included in the Anti-Discrimination Bill despite the resistance from the Catholic Church.

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The CBCP has done it again. Yes, the major source of bigotry, discrimination and heterosexism has released another statement againts the LGBT Community with regards to the law that we have been lobbying for years which would greatly lessen the oppression of the LGBT people in our country. They are the reason why we are marginalized. And can't they accept the fact the we did not choose to be who we are. The only option we had is to hide from the truth or express the real us.

With their type of logic, I might regard Harry Potter & Twilight as my source of moral standards. And again, can't they put their religion out of the picture when it comes to laws and human rights when in fact.

 from: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/106981/cbcp-wants-anti-discrimination-bill-cleansed-of-provisions-on-gay-rights

CBCP wants anti-discrimination bill cleansed of provisions on gay rights

By Niña Calleja
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is now training its guns on the anti-discrimination bill, saying the possible enactment of the bill into law would open the door for the legalization of same sex marriages.
Speaking at a weekly forum in Greenhills, San Juan City, on Wednesday, lawyers of the CBCP and a Catholic bishop hit the Senate for amending the previous version of the anti-discrimination bill or the Senate Bill 2814.
The Senate has recently passed on third reading the bill which is after penalizing all forms of discrimination.
The SB 2814, known as Anti-Ethnic, Racial or Religious Discrimination and Profiling Act of 2011, will be discussed by a bicameral conference committee tasked to harmonize the Senate bill with similar bills passed by the House.
Ronald Reyes, a lawyer of the CBCP, said they had no qualms about the bill before but became concerned when the bill was amended and “sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity” were included.
“It’s opening the door for same sex marriages, which our country doesn’t allow,” Reyes told reporters.
He said the Catholic church, which would not officiate same sex marriages, might be punished if the bill became law.
“This is alarming and it might change our society,” Reyes said.
Another CBCP lawyer Jo Imbong said the LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender) should not be considered the same as the elderly, the handicapped, and the poor.
“These people are disadvantaged not by their own choice. But the third sex, they choose this. How can you give protection to a choice like that?” Imbong said.
Imbong said the bill violated religious freedom and the “no prior restraint” accorded by the law to freedom of speech.
“The government may not penalize a religious organization for … excluding a person from Church responsibilities, for example, based upon that person’s moral behavior which could include the practice or promotion of homosexuality,” she said.
The bill would hinder the Church from teaching what it believed to be right or wrong, Imbong said.
The lawyer noted that under the bill, the priest who refused to officiate same sex marriages may be fined with P500,000 and jailed for 25 years.
Antipolo Bishop Gabriel Reyes said the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life of the CBCP has been appealing to the Senate and the House of Representatives to exclude the LGBT from the bill.

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Ladlad Party List and the Anti-Discrimination Bill

Ms. Bemz Benedito

Ladlad Party List has been with the campaign for the Anti-Discrimination Bill since the beginning. In 1998, Ladlad Chairman Emeritus Danton Remoto was one of our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender leaders who sat down every Wednesday night for two months running to write the bill and what would become the first Anti-Discrimination Bill in the whole of Asia.

Ladlad Party List believed that the bill should be packaged as a human rights bill, for nobody in his or her right mind would wage a fight against a human rights bill in the late 20th century. Ladlad Party List deemed that the focus is the favor of a whole, all-embracing bill that would center on equal rights in the access of public establishments, workplace and in the schools.

Ladlad Party List was clear in the beginning that the right to study and the right to work and to practice one's profession and business was and is paramount in the panoply of rights we want for all Filipino LGBTs. Education is the way to liberation of the self from bondage of the mind and of the socio-political circumstances of one's birth. Work affirms one's self and is a way for self-formation and forging of one's independent identity.

Thus, our party's platform has worked in parallel with the rights being prayed for by the ADB. We want equal rights for students not to be bullied by their homophobic classmates, teachers, and schools. We want equal rights for skilled workers and graduates who want to work in a place where they are qualified to do so.

Many stories of discrimination are happening still in our country -- of students being bullied, of transsexuals being barred from malls, restaurants and bars, of gays in banks not being trusted enough with high positions, because of the silly fear that they will just give the bank's money to their boyfriends, of lesbians not being hired because they are not "feminine enough", of bisexuals still hiding in the deepest, darkest part of the closet for fear of being found that they have a different love, a different life.

The journey for the passage of the ADB has been on the road for almost 13 years. It is a human rights bill that should find no difficulty being passed in a generally democratic and egalitarian Congress that have passed the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, Magna Carta for Women, the Violence against Women and Children Law, and other such bills that gave equal footing to the marginalized among us.

It is time to give Filipino LGBTs their place under the sun, for we are also citizens of this country, we strive for productive lives and we are faithful taxpayers of the land, and we are all God's children living under the roof of His magnanimous love.

Thank you

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"Being portrayed as oppressed is best way to public sympathy"???

Now this is the reason why Religion and the state should really be separated when it comes to decision making. The church's principle is the ruling standards of morality and socio-cultural stereotyping. 

Are we really oppressed? 

Why would you look at the main stream LGBT people that you can see in the media and entertainment? How about those who are beaten because they are gay? Those lesbians who are raped because their parents thought that once they knew a man, they would eventually turn into real women? And the LGBT people who are killed because of HATE?  

We are asking for EQUAL RIGHTS and NOT SPECIAL RIGHTS. And lastly, don't use the bible, not all people are Christians, and if you will use the bible, apparently, you read the words of GOD in a WRONG way.

Being portrayed as oppressed is best way to public sympathy, homosexual activists told

Source: cbcpforlife.com/?p=5005
 

MANILA, Nov. 23, 2011– Are homosexuals really discriminated against?

Whether or not the answer is yes, presenting themselves as victims of oppression is one of the steps in advancing homosexual rights, ultimately to include the recognition of such rights by the law, based on the presentation of Dr. Ligaya Anacta Acosta, regional director of Human Life International (HLI) Asia and Oceania.

“Are they really oppressed? We see many gays in the media… in fact, they lord it over [in the industry] so how can they say that they are being oppressed?” Acosta asked a group of over 200 pro-life delegates.

“But we have to understand that this is actually a Marxist mold to cast the homosexual revolution, which started as early as 1948,” she explained.

A man named Harry Hay thought of the idea of a homosexual activist group, later formulating the principles that would give rise to the US-based group “Mattachine Society” as the first members would call it. The principles revolved around the concept “that homosexuals were a virtual minority oppressed by the dominant heterosexual majority, and that portraying them as oppressed is actually the key to selling the homosexual movement,” Acosta said.

Since the current American president Barack Obama took office in 2009, the United States has made strides in the advancement of anti-life, anti-family legislation, including recognition of same-sex unions and discrimination against people who refuse to recognize such unions. Being true to the pro-abortion, pro-gay rights monicker given to him, the president has established an LGBT Month (LGBT stands for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders), appointed homosexuals as key officials in government, and carried out other measures that have ended up bestowing illegitimate rights on homosexual members of society.

“Sasabihin siguro ng iba, sa US lang ‘yan,” said Acosta, who is privy to a wealth of information on the pro-”choice” movement owing to 20+ years’ involvement in it as a Department of Health (DoH) official.

“Hindi lang po ‘yan sa US because the policies of the United States of America affect the whole world… It’s actually also part of population control. If they cannot force us to legalize abortion or massively use contraception, then [they] promote homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle. Start at kindergarten… and therefore we have to know what is the agenda.”

Promotion of homosexuality in the RH bill“Not too many people know that the RH bill also encourages homosexuality,” Acosta remarked, then gave a rundown of the concerned provisions.

Section 2, the Declaration of Policy, states that “The State recognizes and guarantees the exercise of universal basic human rights to reproductive health by all persons.”
“And then it says, ‘There shall be no discrimination against any person on the grounds’ “among others” ‘…of sexual orientation.’ You have to understand the doublespeak here. And of course, it refers to homosexuality\,” she pointed out.

“It also says here, ‘The State guarantee to eradicate discriminatory practices, laws and policies that infringe on the person’s exercise of reproductive health rights.’”

Further, “gender equality” is defined in Section 4 (Definition of Terms) as “absence of discrimination, on the basis of a person’s sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Though media mileage may give the impression that a significant number of Filipinos exhibit homosexual behavior, it is actually the systematic implementation of an agenda by a small number of people that gives the illusion of huge numbers.

“I have to tell you that there is a huge homosexual network all over the world, and although constituting a minority only of less than 3% of the population, we have to know that the homosexual movement is highly organized and very well-financed,” Acosta pointed out.

“And it is international in scope, which is why they have international associations. They are also very anti-Catholic… and so with various organizations they have been influencing media, education and even religion. Here in the Philippines, there is the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the work of which is to influence politics and legislation, to build a powerful political movement, and they are actually succeeding a little in that area,” she said.

“The Human Rights Campaign is their political action committee to help elect homosexual congressional candidates and those favorable to their agenda,” Acosta added.

Amid tackling more issues regarding unfortunate consequences of homosexual activity and predisposing factors of leading to homosexuality, the pro-life advocate explained the need to spread the life-affirming message against the backdrop of the push for homosexual rights.

“Our goal in presenting to you the homosexual agenda is not really to incite hatred for those persons who suffer homosexual inclinations nor even against the gay activitists. It is to alert the public about the campaign to promote homosexual practice, and to call people — especially us in the Catholic Church — in all sectors to make a firm and appropriate response and address different approaches available to men and women of homosexual inclination who wish to leave… the life of active homosexuality.”

She reminded everyone that healing can be and has been found after living a homosexual lifestyle, and that “every sign of discrimination in their regard should be avoided,” quoting from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (CBCP for Life)

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Anti-Discrimination Bill

Fight for equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBTs) by pushing for the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill (HB 956) authored by AKBAYAN Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel. Here’s what the bill is all about:

Equal rights, not special rights. The bill does not grant additional or special rights to LGBTs. What it does is criminalize violations to the human rights and freedoms on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill affirms and promotes human rights and freedoms that are enshrined in the Constitution.

Equality in schools. The bill prohibits discrimination against LGBT students, which usually takes place through unfair admission policies, unjust expulsion, and unreasonable disciplinary actions.

Equal opportunities in employment. By criminalizing unfair labor practices and policies on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, the bill promotes decent jobs for LGBT workers.

Removing stigma in healthcare. The bill bans hospitals, clinics, and medical personnel like doctors and nurses from discriminating against or abusing LGBT patients.

Fighting police abuse. Stiffer penalties are imposed on law enforcers who abuse the law – from bagansya to the anti-trafficking law - to harass, torture, or extort money from LGBTs.

Organizing for LGBT pride. The bill affirms the freedom of assembly and association by disallowing discrimination in the establishment of LGBT groups in schools, workplace, communities and in politics.

Equal access to establishments. The bill ensures that establishments that are open to the public like malls, restaurants, and bars, among others, are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gays and lesbians in the police and military. The police and military are barred from screening out competent LGBTs who want to join the force. Under the bill, they are also not allowed to remove LGBT policeman or woman and soldiers due to their sexual orientation and gender identity.

Penalizing discrimination. Under the bill, a person found guilty of discriminating against LGBTs can be fined up to P500,000 and/or imprisoned for a maximum of six years. S/he may also be required to undergo human rights education.

About non-discrimination, not same-sex marriage. Homophobic groups wrongfully claim that the bill is about same-sex marriage. Here’s the truth: 1.) the legal recognition of same-sex marriage requires a separate bill, and; 2.) there is absolutely nothing wrong about consensual same-sex relationships.

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