It is one thing to stop discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and another thing to smuggle into a law now pending in Congress a definition of marriage that would include homosexual unions.  When the framers of the 1987 Constitution declared that marriage is an “inviolable institution,” there was no doubt in our minds that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.  The muslims who were among the 48 Commissioners must be turning in their graves as they witness one of the worst forms of “ideological colonization,” the efforts of a small minority in our society to ape countries in the West who have legalized gay marriages.  Just consider what has happened very recently to a top government official in a predominantly muslim Southeast Asian country because he was convicted (justly or unjustly) of Sodomy, which is a sexual intercourse of a man with another man.  The major religions consider homosexual intercourse as unnatural and therefore repulsive.

          After referring to “ideological colonization” during his trip to the Philippines last January 15 to 18, Pope Francis wasted no time in reiterating the need to protect the family in his weekly audiences in Rome.  In a general audience last February 4, his declaration in defence of the family fell just days before Slovakians had to vote for the third time on whether or not same-sex unions should be legalized in the country.  The Pope minced no words:  “The family is being hit, the family is being struck, and the family is being bastardized…You can call everything family, right? …What is being proposed is not marriage; it’s an association.  But it’s not marriage!  It’s necessary to say these things very clearly and we have to say it!”

          Pope Francis lamented the fact that there are so many “new forms” of unions that are “totally destructive and limiting the greatness of the love of marriage.”  As he did in many occasions in the Philippines, he encouraged Catholics to engage in “close combat” with these destructive unions, particularly in the area of pastoral care, saying that it is the key to defending the sanctity of the sacrament.  The bishops of Slovakia urged widespread support for campaigns to keep the traditional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.  Referencing St. Joseph’s immediate defence of the Child Jesus when informed by an angel that Herod was seeking to kill him after his birth, the bishops encouraged all parents and grandparents to go to the polls and defend young lives and families.

          As an expert on constitutional law, Atty. Jemy Gatdula, pointed out, those of us who framed the Philippine Constitution of 1987 were very much influenced by the declaration of principles found in the U.S. Constitution about the inalienable rights of every human being.  Such rights proceed from the very nature of man as defined by philosophers who lived centuries before Christ.  As Atty. Gatdula wrote in his commentary on the Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity (SOGI) anti-discrimination bill, quoting noted legal expert John Finnis, “At the heart of the Platonic-Aristotelian and later ancient philosophical rejections of all homosexual conduct, and thus of the modern ‘gay’ ideology, are three fundamental theses:  (1) The commitment of a man and a woman to each other in the sexual union of marriage is intrinsically good and reasonable, and is incompatible with sexual relations outside marriage; (2) Homosexual acts are radically and peculiarly non-marital, and for that reason intrinsically unreasonable and unnatural; (3) Furthermore, according to  Plato, if not Aristotle, homosexual acts have a special similarity to solitary masturbation, and both types of radically non-marital act are manifestly unworthy of the human being and immoral.”

          From the use of natural reason alone, the intellectual leaders of ancient cultures have arrived at the conclusion that the enjoyment of the sexual pleasure outside of the marital union between a man and a woman is immoral.  Homosexual acts are not being singled out. Masturbation, fornication, adultery and all other forms of sexual acts that are not within the marital union and open to life are intrinsically evil.  We should do everything possible to prevent a few lawmakers to smuggle into the SOGI anti-discrimination bill any provision that will legalize gay marriages.  For comments, my email address is bernardo.villegas@uap.asia.