From left Bro Ansel Beluso, Ching Gaerlan-Calub, and Atty. Jo Imbong during a presscon at Chali Conference Center, Cagayan de Oro on the controversial Divorce Bill and SOGIE Bill on November 30. (Photo by Netnet Camomot)
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By URIEL C. QUILINGUING , Contributing Editor

ALL moves to enact a law on sexual orientation, gender identity and expressions (Sogie) must be opposed because this would only perpetuate a culture of lies, deceit, and deception which most lesbians, gays, bi-sexuals, transgenders, queer plus community members have been espousing, a missionary advocating against the divorce and Sogie bills said over the weekend.

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From left Bro Ansel Beluso, Ching Gaerlan-Calub, and Atty. Jo Imbong during a presscon at Chali Conference Center, Cagayan de Oro on the controversial Divorce Bill and SOGIE Bill on November 30. (Photo by Netnet Camomot)

Ansel Beluso of the Missionary Families of Christ, who was one of the speakers in a Divorce and Sogie Bills forum at Chali Conference Center here, said there are over a dozen reasons why “the entire Filipino nation should totally and unequivocally reject the Sogie bill” but opted to focus only on four “lies.”      

Beluso, who claimed that he used to live a very active gay lifestyle but opted to take the path of change and renewal, said the first of these lies is that genitals do not determine sex and gender. 

“This is wrong. Truth is, genitals do determine sex and gender because basic biology tells us that, in humans, biological sex and gender are at birth,” said the former head writer of the late Inday Badiday’s Eye-to-Eye showbiz-oriented television talk-show.

Beluso has been married for 18 years with three kids. 

Sex, he said, is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal genitalia (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia (penis for males and vagina for females). “Nowhere in any scientific journal or biology textbook can we find [it that states] sex and gender in humans can be determined otherwise.” 

Beluso said a “group of geneticists has examined the genomes of almost half a million people and the result indicated there is no such thing as a gay gene. In the case of transsexuals, if transwomen undergo a DNA test, the results will irrevocably prove that they are still men.”

He said the second lie of the LGBTQ+ is that if a person has a homosexual orientation, the path to fullness of life is to embrace and live it out. 

This, he said, is wrong since there is such a thing as gender dysphoria which is the distress a person feels due to a mismatch between their gender identity and the sex assigned at birth. 

Beluso cited the American Psychiatric Association that, in a statement, said gender dysphoria is a mental disorder, hence this requires treatment and may involve supporting the person through changes in gender expression. 

“The real path to fullness of life for persons with gender dysphoria, such as the transgenders, is treatment or therapeutic intervention – not genital mutilation and hormone therapy,” said the forum speaker, who testified before the Senate committee on women, children and family relations last Sept. 4, this year.

The third “lie,” he said, is that change is impossible for persons with same-sex attraction since truth gays can change, just like what happened to him and so many ex-gays he knows. 

Beluso said it’s a myth to claim that one is “born that way and can’t change” since sexual orientations do change and such statement is political and not scientific. 

He said it is also wrong to say that “it is for the welfare of children with an evident homosexual orientation that they be made to learn about the LGBTQI+ ideology and guided to embrace the gay lifestyle — even at a very young age. 

“Raising children in an environment that espouses, promotes, propagates and institutionalizes the so-called gender ideology actually harms them,” he added, citing findings from the American College of Pediatricians which claims that “conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.” 

Beluso, who has been a life coach for persons with same-sex attractions, said he wonders if the author of Senate Bill No. 935, Sen. Ana Theresia Hontiveros Baraquel, really know what the LGBTQ+ really, adding that what the community of transgenders needs is recognition, not separate comfort rooms for them.

Lawyer Jo Aurea Imbong of the Ateneo de Manila University and Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines legal office and physician Rene Josef Bullecer of the Human Life International-Pilipinas also spoke in the forum.

More than 300 participants from the Roman Catholic dioceses of Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Iligan, Ozamiz, and Zamboanga attended the forum. Among those who attended were educators from the Assumption Montessori School, Cagayan Paseo Campus, Liceo de Cagayan University, Gingoog City Colleges, Macabalan National High School, and Xavier University.  

The forum was under auspices of the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, HLI Pilipinas and Serve Life Cagayan de Oro Inc.

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