|
Help Philippine Group Fight
Anti-Gay & TG Marriage Bills
An Action Alert from The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC).
email: ern-en@MAIL.IGLHRC.ORG, web site: http://www.ilga.org/
Philippines: Proposed marriage legislation in senate discriminates against homosexuals and transgenders.
The Progressive Organization of Gays in the Philippines, known as Progay,
urgently seeks letters to support its fight against a recent spate of
anti-gay and transgender marriage legislative proposals. In July and
August 1998, Senators Marcelo B. Fernan and Miriam Defensor Santiago
submitted a series of four bills that bar recognition of marriage involving
transgenders, contracted in the Philippines or abroad, and bar recognition
of marriages or domestic partnership between two people of the same
biological sex contracted in countries that legally recognize such
relationships.
Currently, Article 1 of the Philippine Family Code defines marriage as a
"special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into
in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life."
Likewise, Article 2 of the Code stipulates that the contracting parties in
marriage must be a male and a female. Threatened by the possibility of
trangendered persons participating in this institution, Senator Fernan
introduced Senate Bills No. 897 and 898, respectively, to append the
biological to the word pairs "man"/"woman" and "male"/"female" in these
definitions.
Additionally, Article 26 of the Family Code presently reads "all marriages
solemnized outside the Philippines, in accordance with the laws in force in
the country where they were solemnized, and valid there as such, shall also
be valid in this country." This article applies the principle of lex loci
celebrationis, which holds that the validity of a marriage is determined
by the law of the place where it was celebrated, which other jurisdictions
agree to respect. However, Senate Bill No. 894 seeks to limit this
recognition of marriages outside the country to those specifically between
a biological man and biological woman. Senate Bill No. 1117 proposes
the amendment of this article explicitly to exclude same-sex marriages.
Members of Progay urgently wish to mobilize support to defeat these bills.
Filipino sexual minorities are deeply concerned that their successful
passage could serve as an impetus for a rash of further anti-gay and
anti-transgender measures. They also fear the legitimate possibility that
highlighting the marriage issue could provoke an intense conservative
backlash against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
communities--with the potential to erase any possible broad base for
supporting gay marriage, as recently seen in Hawaii and Alaska in the US.
They ask for letters of protest requesting that the sponsoring lawmakers
withdraw these bills from the legislative process and instead work for
bills that protect the full social, economic, cultural, political, and
civil rights of sexual minorities. In your letter, please mention the fact
that the administration of President Joseph Estrada signed with the
Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International
Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) on August 7, 1998, which among other things
compels the Republic of the Philippines to prevent violations of and
promote the right to form a marital union and to found a family and to
ensure family communications and reunions. "The insistence on testing for
biological sex before matrimony," according to a Progay spokesperson,
"smacks of bureaucratic invasion of privacy, imposes difficulties on
couples who want to get married, and can involve invasive testing on women
whom the state will force to privately bear the high costs of this unwanted
technology."
Due to the sensitive nature of the political situation and the uncertain
timing of the bills' consideration, Progay asks that supporters write
letters addressed to the Senate but mailed to the Progay office so that
they can be presented collectively during Congressional hearings.
Please send letters to:
Progay-Philippines
P.O. Box 1764 QCCPO,
1157 PHILIPPINES
To facilitate Progay's efforts in documenting these letters, please send a
text copy of your letters via e-mail to: progay@yahoo.com
. . .
A sample letter might read:
Senate President Marcelo Fernan and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago,
I am/We are seriously concerned about the bills you filed in Congress,
which seek to legally define people according to biological sex and
systematically exclude people, especially homosexuals and transgenders, who
want to get married but are not allowed due to the existing Family Code.
These bills are unjust because they prevent people from fully exercising
their democratic rights. Existing laws and reality already discriminate
against homosexual behavior, and Senate Bills 894, 897, 898, and 1117, if
enacted, will open the door to official persecution of real or suspected
sexual minorities. These bills can encourage bigoted people to threaten
and defame gays, lesbians, and transgendered people.
Please withdraw the anti-gay marriage bills you filed earlier and instead
support the realization of human rights enshrined in the Comprehensive
Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian
Law (CARHRIHL), which was signed by the government on August 7, 1998.
Please work for laws that will uplift the conditions of sexual minorities.
Thank you.
Signatory/ies
. . .
Top Main List of Notices IFGE Home
|
