FULL TEXT OF THE SPEECH OF ANSEL BELUSO AT THE SOGIE BILL HEARING

I am hereby granting the request of a lengthening list of people asking for a text copy of the statement I read during the public hearing on the SOGIE Bill conducted by the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations & Gender Equality last Wednesday, 4 September 2019 in the Sen. Jose Laurel Room of the Senate of the Philippines.

***

Madame Chair, honorable members of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations & Gender Equality, good morning. I am here today representing Pro-Life Philippines and Couples for Christ Foundation for Family & Life. Please note that Pro-Life Philippines has already submitted our position paper on our opposition to the bill which is the subject of today’s public hearing, the SOGIE Bill

My name is Ansel Beluso. I am an ex-gay, which means I used to live a very active gay lifestyle but has since chosen the path of change and renewal. I am happily and blissfully married to my wife Joyce for 18 years now; we have three children Noel, Gian and JBen.

I have actually listed more than a dozen reasons why the entire Filipino nation should totally and unequivocally reject the SOGIE Bill; but I want to zero in on just one this morning due to paucity of time.

Madame Chair, I humbly and most respectfully submit that, because of its official invention of special LGBTQI+ rights, the SOGIE Bill, when enacted into law, shall forcibly engender and perpetuate a culture of lies, deceit, deception and duplicity into the life of our country and people. Madame Chair, allow me to mention only four of these lies.

First lie: Genitals do not determine sex and gender. Wrong. Truth is, genitals do determine sex and gender. Basic biology tells us that, in humans, biological sex and gender is determined by five factors present at birth: 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. Nowhere in any scientific journal or biology textbook can we find it said that sex and gender in humans can be determined otherwise. In fact, findings of a landmark study done by a group of geneticists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the University of Helsinki, released last month, which examined the genomes of almost half a million people, indicate that 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.

Second lie: If a person has a homosexual orientation, the path to fullness of life is to embrace and live it out. Wrong. Truth is, there is such a thing as gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is the distress a person feels due to a mismatch between their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth. The American Psychiatric Association states that gender dysphoria is a mental disorder. It further states that treatment for gender dysphoria may involve supporting the person through changes in gender expression. Treatment may also include counseling or psychotherapy. In other words, 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.

Third lie: Change is impossible for persons with same-sex attraction. Wrong. Truth is, gays can change. And we do change. According to Dr. Lisa Diamond, a top researcher of the American Psychological Association (APA) and an avowed lesbian activist, sexuality desire is fluid, homosexual desire is not “hard-wired;” that “born that way and can’t change” is a myth; feelings don’t overrule volition (behavior is a choice, one does not need to act on every feeling — especially sexual feelings); the “born that way” argument is political, not scientific; sexual orientation is subject to change.

Fourth lie: It is for the welfare of children with 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. Wrong. Truth is, according to the document updated in September 2017 by Drs. Michelle A. Cretella and Quentin Van Meter, President and Vice President respectively of the American College of Pediatricians, as well as Dr. Paul McHugh, Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School, raising children in an environment that espouses, promotes, propagates and institutionalizes the so-called gender ideology actually harms them. (https://www.acpeds.org/…/pos…/gender-ideology-harms-children) It also says, “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.” The statement further states, “Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies” is injurious to children.

Madame Chair, I can go on and on but time is running out. In closing, may I humbly suggest that the so-called LGBTQI+ ideology that the SOGIE Bill espouses and promotes is not a part of Filipino culture. One very basic proof of this, we do not have a Tagalog word for bisexual or transgender or queer or intersex and all the other terms used by the LGBTQI-JKLMNOP activists. This is alien to us as Filipinos. And I would like to echo the message of Pope Francis in the Meeting of Families during his visit to our country in 2015. He said, “Resist ideological colonization that tries to destroy the family.”

Madame Chair, thank you very much and may God bless and have mercy on us all.