The LGBTQ community isnt asking for special rights just equal ones

While Pride Month is a time to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, it’s also a time to protest and further queer people’s calls for equality.

For two decades, the SOGIESC Equality Bill has been stuck in limbo, with lawmakers still debating over and delaying it.

Talk of religion aside, those opposing the bill always bring up how it gives “special rights” to LGBTQ+ individuals (*cough* Eddie Villanueva *cough*). This isn’t the case at all.

The SOGIESC Equality Act, according to Senate Bill No. 1600 refiled by Senators Risa Hontiveros, Loren Legarda, and Mark Villar, aims to protect every person from discrimination—no matter what their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics are. So yes, this protection isn’t just for those who identify as LGBTQ+, it also includes protecting cisgender, heterosexual people who aren’t part of the queer rainbow.

Moreover, this anti-discrimination bill does not put the straights at a disadvantage compared to queer people. The rights that it hopes to grant to LGBTQ+ individuals are extended to heterosexuals, too. Besides, everybody has SOGIE. Being a cisgender heterosexual is a SOGIE.

In the latest consolidated version, the bill listed actions that will be considered discriminatory, such as the following:

• Advertising, producing, and publishing materials promoting, encouraging, and perpetuating stigma or inciting violence and sexual abuse against any person or group on the basis of SOGIESC
• Denying access to public services to any person on the basis of SOGIESC;
• Including SOGIESC, as well as the disclosure of one’s SOGIESC, in the criteria for hiring, promotion, transfer, designation, work assignment, re-assignment,
• Refusing admission or expelling a person from any educational or training institution, such as police and military academies or training institutions, on the basis of SOGIESC
• Imposing disciplinary sanctions, penalties harsher than customary or similar punishments, requirements, restrictions, or prohibitions that infringe on the rights of the students on the basis of SOGIESC

TL;DR if a company won’t hire you, for instance, because you are gay or because you’re a woman, they’d be penalized if the bill gets passed.

Just the beginning

But an anti-discrimination bill is just the beginning—same-sex marriage and gender affirmation laws are next on the table, both of which are touchy topics in a conservative nation like the Philippines no matter how accepting Filipinos say they are. Can’t talk about equal rights without granting these to LGBTQ+ folks.

And again, it’s not asking for special rights—straight couples can get married whenever they want, why shouldn’t two persons of the same sex be able to, too? And if conservatives don’t want to grant marriages, then at least same-sex couples should be able to get civil unions. ICYDK, civil unions are partnerships recognized by a duly licensed notary public while marriages are done in the presence of a priest or minister.

Same-sex unions will not even affect the straights. They won’t be forced to get one if they become institutionalized. Legalizing civil unions will just allow same-sex couples to enjoy the same rights and privileges as straight ones like adopting a child, being recognized as parents of a child, becoming each other’s dependents, etc. What couple wouldn’t want to be at their partner’s side if one of them falls ill in the hospital?

The Filipino LGBTQ+ community still has a long fight ahead of them to experience the same rights as their cis-het siblings, so the calls to push for these bills must continue. This struggle for equality shouldn’t stop when Pride month ends. For a country that prides itself on being LGBTQ+ friendly, the Philippines sure denies its queer community the most basic rights.

banner by: @kat_katoon

The post <b>The LGBTQ+ community isn’t asking for special rights, just equal ones</b> appeared first on WE THE PVBLIC.

Source: we the pvblic