FREEDOM!
The University of the Philippines Diliman has just recently celebrated Pride
Week, showcasing the many organizations that add to the rich cultural history
of the University. One of the more notable, and we absolutely do mean notable,
organizations that was presented during Pride Week was UP Babaylan, the
University’s very own lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students’ support
group.
UP Babaylan’s current head or the
“Punong Babaylan” as the members of the LGBT group would prefer to call it, is
Rod “Talla Heeb” Singh, a student of UP Diliman, currently taking up BA film,
who, along with every member of the LGBT group, is ready to fight with every
fiber of his being to bring equality to the “colorful” members of society
oppressed by the uninformed world.
So what’s more to UP Babaylan than
making noise for the voiceless captives of sexual conformity?
The University’s very own LGBT
movement began due to a violent assault on a gay resident in an all – boy’s
residence in UP’s Narra Hall. The incident alarmed the University’s students’
need for an organization that will advance the rights and protect the welfare
of the University’s LGBT students
Since then UP Babaylan has been
spear – heading movements advancing gay and lesbian rights both locally and internationally.
One of the local movements, which had just been witnessed recently is the Gay
Pride Parade held in the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, where
members of the LGBT group paced freely through of the ACAD Oval expressing
their freedom, their honest selves, as members of a loud, proud, caring and
concerned LGBT Community.
The group’s heart and motive is presented
in these words coming from the group: The group strongly believes in the
inherent equality of all persons regardless of status or condition. For the
organization, this inherent equality implies that human beings should not be
discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation.
For it has simply been history that
the whole LGBT community, found in almost every part of the world, has long
been looked down upon, persecuted, and outright assaulted for their
expressiveness in the life they themselves have chosen to live. For in the view
of the uninformed, it is equality that everyone conform to a standard set by
the majority, a group of people enforcing what they “think” is right, enforcing
their own idea of what is truly “equal” without even knowing the consequences
of the very words they say against the members of this community.
An example of these group are some,
not all, of the “Christians” that , as people, sadly, often see, are very far
from the Christ they follow, I say this in the sense that they openly condemn
and persecute the same exact people that Christ himself had died for.
What
benefit will come from condemning them? What good will come from the bias
judgment and persecution of a people that just want to live in freedom the lives
they were given? The answer is obvious. Christ called his people to love, to
accept, to have care, compassion and concern for every person, be it the rich
or the poor, the nun or the prostitute, the saint or the sinner, these people
all have one need: and that is LOVE.
What kind of equality is this that
involves that harm towards a fellow human being? This is not equality at all.
Equality is not conforming to one
standard, making all of us bland and boring. Equality is giving the very best
of who you are, what you have, to compliment the lives of others yielding an
output beneficial to all humankind.
Equality
means no one gets tramples or taken advantage of; everyone is lifted and given
an equal opportunity. Whoever said or thought that homosexuality would get in
the way and hinder that? And that’s what these brave souls are laying down
their lives for, that their fellow LGBT’s may be freed from a life of
unnecessary condemnation and sexual captivity.
The
group is more than just about making noise to get the voiceless captives of
gender conformity noticed. Let’s face it, people have done that before, and
that’s the only thing they’ve done, nothing more and nothing less, and where
did this act, this cursed act of the uneducated leave them, nowhere but in a
situation worse than they had before.
This
group spoke out, and did something to enforce the rights that they have as
human beings, there is no hypocrisy in what they do dear friends. These people
truly are the real deal, people that are loud, proud, and fighting with
everything they’ve got to uphold the dignity of their fellow queer man/woman.
Breaking
the silence, going beyond every boundary with a passion burning in their hearts
to fight for the rights of the common queer man and woman: UP Babaylan, not
yet, not even close to backing down.
A salute to the brave men and women
fighting for the cause of a community held in captivity.
Sources:
http://www.upbabaylan.blogspot.com/
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