Maybe they're trying to regain readership by deliberately trolling people.
And you, Madame Tintin Babao, I'd think you'd at least maintain a certain degree of journalistic integrity worthy of your column, AND broadsheet. The kind of integrity that requires you to set personal bias aside in favor of the truth. At the very least you cannot afford to be stupid with such delicate subjects such as this, because too many people listen to you make Unang Hirit on parenting issues and think you're a legit role model because they had breakfast everyday to you reading a tele-prompter.
Alas I forget, as many often do, you are a celebrity and not a scientist. The truth is not your priority, ratings are.
Auntie Faith pointed out that maybe Tintin was pandering to public opinion. The outrage over this article within my facebook stream alone makes me wonder if it IS public opinion. But then again my friend list is composed mostly of university-educated rebels and progressives. Come to think of it, my stream is probably really a carefully curated minority. Because if you're prone to posting images superimposed with revoltingly fallacious text like this...
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| (because Pikachu needs more than fb shares you gullible second handers!) |
... I've probably hidden you from my feed.
Maybe I'm out of sync because I follow websites like Offbeat Families that frequently feature LGBT issues and non-cis gendered families in a favorable light. Maybe I'm out of touch with what the "norm" is regarding gender issues in this country because despite our queer opinions and lifestyles, my partner and I are both straight and therefore above persecution. We assume that the barangay has become honky dory about sexuality just because we never find opportunities to talk about it within our immediate community.
But you can't say you accept something and yet call it morally wrong. That just means you don't understand, and that means you really haven't accepted. To tolerate is one thing, to accept is another.
Meanwhile, what's the deal with judging families who do accept? It's not just that people accept nalang out of love nalang. When you love someone, you tend to be more generous with your understanding, to be willing to bend your usually strict self-imposed ideas of what should or should not be to find out the truth of their situation. Why judge those who've liberated themselves? Is their acceptance making you look bad?
By writing that article, you set a standard of behavior for your readers. It might be true that you're asking parents NOT to beat gay children, but it's not coming from a place of enlightenment either. Your attempt at being factual is cute. You cite ONE source too (probably the only source that you agreed with?), when my ex-psych student friend cited so many different studies during a passing conversation that simply said that of the many factors that lead to homosexuality, most of them are nature instead of nurture.
When a lesbian friend found out I was pregnant, she told me to pray it wouldn't turn out gay. She was out and proud and yet she did not want my child to live the life she's lived - cowering from the mainstream and keeping her wings clipped.
I don't know if my son is going to be gay or not. But I don't see how teaching him which toys are "boy toys" or "girl toys" is going to make any difference on who he eventually falls in love with. The article says so itself in the beginning. Why it turns around and contradicts itself later is beyond me.
Also, why it matters who he eventually falls in love with is beyond me as well. I've never been able to tell my heart who to love either, and I've almost exclusively fallen in love with boys. It's just not something you decide on, or influence.
But it matters to me that my son is going to grow up in a society that thinks it does, and is encouraged (or led?) to do so by articles such as this. Should I keep my child from the pain and hurt that comes from passive aggression by teaching him to censor himself? I think not.
I think I'll teach him that there are voices with the most volume but the least truth. That there are people who sugarcoat judgment with the appearance of tolerance, while appealing to fear. I think I'll teach him that fear is a lie we tell ourselves to survive, and survival is all that's left for people who've been convinced that they aren't the masters of their own fate. That we grow in latitudes and longitudes, in spirals and beyond horizons, that some people want us all to be neat and tidy little cubes like them and most often convince themselves that this is the way it should be. That despite this being their reality, it's not everyone's. John Lennon did say he wasn't the only one.
I still belong to this society. No matter if I come from the oddball minority. My voice may not echo with celebrity but I can still remind people I meet that love is supposed to be the rule. Are you acting out of love or out of fear for what you don't understand? Are you letting fear dictate your hand when you cast stones on those slave to different passions?
Hear me baby boy. If you end up gay, I won't mind. Everybody thought you were going to be a girl anyway. All I forbid is that you become bitter because of who you are. I forbid you to forget that you've been loved before we knew you and we'll love whoever you turn out to be. I forbid your potential to become stunted because we did not allow you to spread your multicolored wings. That won't happen with me.
And even if you end up straight, I won't keep you from playing with girl toys. Maybe this way you won't consider girls alien and offensive the way pink stuffed toys are to most little boys. Maybe you won't grow to objectify women and learn that aside from individual preferences, we're not really all that different.
Maybe the issue here isn't about Tintin Babao's opinion on homosexuality. As Ninang Connet said, "Maybe the great con isn't that things like that get published in the national daily, but that we are bamboozled to think that what they publish matter."
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