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Not necessary
Honorable judges, worthy opponents, my countrymen, ladies and gentlemen, a
morning of enlightenment to us all!
In the much celebrated case of Chua-Qua vs Clave, the Supreme Court, speaking
through Justice Regalado said, The heart has reasons of its own which reason does
not know We agree with this legal truism. In fact, we agree that love is universal
and that a man is capable of loving another man of the same sex. However, while
we believe that the LGBT community has every right to love and be loved, we do
not agree that redefining marriage to include same sex marriage is within the
province of civil law; otherwise norms and cultures, which are the foundations of law
will be put aside in favor of biases, prejudices and the choice of only a few.
We believe that same sex marriage should not be legalized in the Philippines for the
following reasons: It is NOT NECESSARY, NOT BENEFICIAL, AND NOT
PRACTICABLE.
First, our present Family Code does not in any way violate the equal protection
clause of the Constitution for reasons I will expound later, hence there is no
necessity to amend the same. Second, the LGBT is widely accepted in the
Philippines as studies show and in fact, gay right discrimination is low in this side of
the world. Legalizing marriage will not, therefore, have a significant impact to the
economy as homosexuals are enjoying fairly the same rights as any other citizen for
that matter. Third, no empirical case has been made that a homosexual partnership
and a marriage are indistinguishable.
Allow me first to rebut the arguments on the first speaker of the Affirmative side
and in the process, advance my own.
The Affirmative side would like us to believe that the present Family Code infringes
the equal protection accorded by the Constitution. This argument misleads us.
Those who now argue that same-sex couples should be included, as a matter of civil
right, within the legal definition of marriage are appealing to the constitutional
principles of equal protection and equal treatment. But this is entirely inappropriate
for making the case for same-sex "marriage." To argue that the Constitution
guarantees equal treatment to all citizens, both men and women, does not say
anything about what constitutes marriage, or a family, or a business enterprise, or a
university, or a friendship.
To illustrate, my dear friends, can the equal protection clause lead a court to require
that a small business be called a marriage just because two business partners
prefer to think of their business that way? Can this equal protection clause be
invoked so that the court can conclude that those of us who pray before the start of
debate competitions should be allowed to redefine our debate clubs as churches?
The absurdity is very obvious.