Same-Sex Marriage in the Philippines

Same-Sex Marriage in the Philippines 

Same sex marriage in the United States is now a reality even in the 13 states that had previously banned it. The Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote on Friday, June 26, 2015 that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. The United States became the twenty-first and most populous country to legalize same-sex marriage.

 As Justice Kennedy finished announcing his opinion from the bench on Friday, several lawyers seated in the bar section of the court’s gallery wiped away tears, while others grinned and exchanged embraces.

President Obama in his remarks at the rose garden, welcomed the decision, saying it “affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts. Today,” he said, “we can say, in no uncertain terms, that we have made our union a little more perfect.”

But despite the legalization of same sex marriage in the US Supreme Court last week, the Philippine government meanwhile affirmed that under its law, marriage is still between a man and a woman. In the Philippine law, same sex marriage is against the Constitution and against the Family Code of the Philippines and an act of congress can only change that.

The leadership of the Roman Catholic church in the Philippines also stressed its opposition to legalizing gay marriage on Sunday, June 28, 2015. According to Archbishop Socrates Villegas, the president of the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, ‘The Church continues to maintain what it has always taught. Marriage is a permanent union of man and woman. This is the way the Church has always read Sacred Scriptures. This is the way it has lived its faith, inspired by the Holy Spirit," said Archbishop Villegas. "We will continue to teach the sons and daughters of the Church that marriage... is an indissoluble bond of man and woman," he stressed.

Also Archbishop Oscar Cruz, judicial vicar of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines-National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal on his interview at the inquirer on the phenomenal same sex marriage issue that there is no chance of the Catholic Church agreeing to same-sex unions in the Philippines but said a lesbian and gay man might be allowed to marry.

“May a lesbian marry a gay man? My answer is ‘yes’ because in that instance the capacity to consummate the union is there. The anatomy is there. The possibility of conception is there,” Cruz told a church forum on Tuesday, June 23, 2015.

“I ask this question to myself and I have thought about it for a long time and the answer is ‘yes’,” he said.

Cruz was explaining the Church’s opposition to gay marriage or same-sex civil unions.

Several European church leaders — including Godfried Cardinal Daneels, the former Archbishop of Mechelin-Brussels, and the Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ — recently made statements that were seen as hinting of eventual Church approval for gay civil unions.

But Cruz said gay advocates would have a difficult job getting legal approval for gay civil unions in the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country.

 “For the Church, even if you turn it upside down and call it by another name, it would still not be marriage. For the Church, even if a hundred (judges) bless a same-sex wedding, it would still not be effective,” he said.

However, the church’ service is open to all it just that same sex marriage in the church is not allowed.