So former Bb. Pilipinas titlist Miriam Quiambao has been taking a lot of criticism from the pro-LGBT crowd for her anti-gay statements on a tv show and on her twitter. I regret that I too have tweeted some pretty angry messages about her regarding this issue. I should have taken my own advice about not tweeting when angry, because I now wish I could take back what I’ve written about wanting to take a shower after reading this Rappler article.
This brings me to my second point: that getting angry at beauty queens for their opinions is silly. First of all, they’re not supposed to have opinions in the first place. At least not opinions of their own. Oh, I’m pretty sure a lot of of these contestants have their own views, values and opinions, and will stand up for them (I knew a lovely girl who once braved public derision in order to follow her heart, and years later she won the Bb. Pilipinas-International title). It’s just that they have to make it seem like these views come from somewhere that is acceptable, like their parents, their priests, and their gods. That’s why a lot of interview answers at pageants include disclaimers like “This is how my parents raised me”, “The bible says…” and “As a Christian, I was taught to believe…” After all, in this age of female doctors, female lawyers and female heads of state, beauty pageants are here to remind us all not just that a woman’s main role is to be decorative (that swimsuit competition is there so we can judge the size of her boobs, not her IQ) but also that she cannot have an opinion that goes against her society, her parents or her god. How many beauty pageant contestants do you know who espouse something really controversial like, say, insisting that women be not be paraded around like meat for entertainment purposes? Or that a person shouldn’t have to be skinny to be considered beautiful? Why, she’d be laughed off the stage. By taking absolutely no responsibility for her anti-gay views, Ms. Q has proven beyond doubt why she deserved to be crowned Bb. Pilipinas and declared first-runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant.
So yes, I apologize for my angry tweets. In my own defense, it was only because I have very strong opinions against people espousing prejudice and using religion as an excuse for their bigotry. Especially since I don’t agree with most religions and I’m not sure if the wars, witch burnings, child molestations and general oppression of women and gays that arise from them make religions worth having around. Furthermore, I absolutely claim these views as mine and am not blaming my parents or a deity for my views and opinions, but it just goes to show why (among many other reasons, including my unladylike fat hips) I, unlike Ms. Q, am not beauty queen material.
Tania N. Arpa blogs about being a geek in the city in The Entropy Blog. She is also on Twitter.
[…] the difficulties of satire in a country where the news reads like stories out of The Onion, and how beauty queen Miriam Quiambao’s courage in defiance of popular opinion has contributed to the awareness of LGBT […]
I humbly dedicate this blog post to Ms. Miriam Quiambao http://babaylangkempet.blogspot.com/2012/05/miria…
This article is one of the best I have read about this issue. Thank you!
Thank you, Beatrice!
meh.. these people and their “God says this, God says that”. i believe i can bloody well burn you for your blasphemies, as God tells his people to do so. but before that, my case. you say you are not against gay people, but against their act. truly now, i tell you, he who is without sin, cast the first stone. tell me oh so self-righteously how you are better than the gay people. do they judge you? have you ever heard of gay people protesting against you? i dont think so. its easy to persecute others, when hidden behind the mask of serlf-righteousness, religious fervor, or “God says so”. i believe God prevents you from eating many things which you enjoy in your dinner table. i am pretty sure that your God has many commandments which you do not follow (and I am not talking about the 10 popular ones, i mean those small things about SLAVERY, DEATH BY STONING, ETC). by right of conquest, i can take things from you, and you can’t do shit about it, since it is biblically acceptable. please don’t kid yourselves, you only selectively follow commandments. you barely have any right to be judging others.
you like to keep talking about a straight path. what path is this? who taught you that? oh, the church? please tell me how righteous your church is, after a thousand years of dark ages. after all the persecution, the bloodshed that spread it, the forced baptism, the political agendas and , oh yeah, how PIOUS your church is. for more proof, just count how many people are STARVING just outside your favorite churches. and paedophilia too, dont forget that one. i rest my case.
"She obviously doesn’t want to believe this — she says she loves the LGBT folks — but since her god tells her that gay sex is wrong, she clearly doesn’t have a choice"
" Being a Christian, they didn’t have a choice but to save the orphans"
excuse me madam but Christians have a CHOICE.. have you ever heard of FREE WILL?! please check what you post and think about it over and over again..
If you have dwindled in your way of thinking.. If you so much see homosexuality as something to be praised.. something people should look up to.. something SO RIGHTEOUS.. THINK AGAIN..
JUST A TIP ^^ SATAN IS THE FATHER OF ALL LIES! SO MANY THINGS WHICH IS WRONG (OR SHOULD I SAY.. WAS WRONG?) IS NOW ACCEPTED AS SOMETHING RIGHTEOUS BY THE MODERN GENERATION.. YOU SO BLINDLY FOLLOW YOUR DESIRES AND JUSTIFY YOUR WRONG DOINGS SO IT MAY APPEAR ACCEPTABLE.. SO IT MAY APPEAR RIGHTEOUS..
poor souls.. I hope you reconsider your actions and thoughts.. I do not hate homosexuals or BIs or whatever they would like to be called or call themselves or categorize themselves -_- but its the act.. its the sinful act that i'd like to point out.. and yes I would like them to reconsider.. or be persuaded because the LIES,that you so encourage them to keep on thinking, is keeping them from the STRAIGHT PATH..
thanks for reading my comment and taking time.. I myself am not so pure but I damn well know that encourages people to accept the beautiful lies that are spread around the world..
I can't believe it's already 2012 and die-hard religious fanatics still exist in our society. Then again, Filipinos are one gullible race. First of all, you being a Christian has nothing to do with the fact that homosexuality have been around and are scientifically proven. Oh right, because you believe in a talking snake and that a man can survive inside a fish’s belly for 3 days during biblical times mean that hundreds of years of research is not enough for the “Word of the Lord,” right?
It’s funny because I used to think like you, when I was naïve and I used to follow everything that has been told to me without questioning a word… then the Internet happened. How irresponsible of us human beings to think that we got everything figured out just because a book that was written by the “men of God” is the way of life. News flash, we evolution is real and it is happening every day – again, that’s a fact.
Now, let’s go back on the subject, homosexuality is something not to be proud of, right? Did you know that most priests prefer little boys over girls when it comes to you-know-what? Hmmm… not only is that terribly wrong, but that uber gay, man. And I mean, there’s nothing more “GAY-ER” than an old hypocrite bastard molesting kids. If I used the word gay too many times, I apologize, I don’t have anything against gay people, in fact I support what they do because they are humans too and they have the right to feel what they feel.
Now, if you think all the people who don’t believe in your God should burn in hell because we are “poor souls”, well yeah sure. I don’t give a flying (insert cuss word here) because at least I never lived my life like a fool believing there is a better life after this one. If you would love to stay delusional for your own selfish reasons, then by all means, just try not to be a hypocrite moron – because I am pretty sure you have gay friends lurking around and you can’t say that straight to their faces.
So as far as “Team People” is concerned, I agree that people should be responsible for their own judgments rather than using their religions as an excuse to be a-holes. We don’t know what will happen after death, and we will only know until we are there – that’s a fact.
"Did you know that most priests prefer little boys over girls when it comes to you-know-what? Hmmm… not only is that terribly wrong, but that uber gay, man. And I mean, there’s nothing more “GAY-ER” than an old hypocrite bastard molesting kids."
CHECK THIS OUT: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/
//excuse me madam but Christians have a CHOICE.. have you ever heard of FREE WILL?! please check what you post and think about it over and over again.. //
Except that God threatens us with hellfire if we don't follow his commands, which I might add include acts of genocide (Numbers 31). Seems like your God's notion of free will was taken from Don Corleone's playbook.
//JUST A TIP ^^ SATAN IS THE FATHER OF ALL LIES! SO MANY THINGS WHICH IS WRONG (OR SHOULD I SAY.. WAS WRONG?) IS NOW ACCEPTED AS SOMETHING RIGHTEOUS BY THE MODERN GENERATION.. YOU SO BLINDLY FOLLOW YOUR DESIRES AND JUSTIFY YOUR WRONG DOINGS SO IT MAY APPEAR ACCEPTABLE.. SO IT MAY APPEAR RIGHTEOUS.. //
Nobody says that being gay is righteous, dude. It's simply a sexual identity, one that people will have to learn to accept as a reality, whether they like it or not. What is righteous or not, in my opinion, is how you choose to tackle the whole thing. We can choose to choose to accept the LGBTs in society with the same degree of love and tolerance we give everybody else, or we go it the way you want:
//poor souls.. I hope you reconsider your actions and thoughts.. I do not hate homosexuals or BIs or whatever they would like to be called or call themselves or categorize themselves -_- but its the act.. its the sinful act that i'd like to point out.. and yes I would like them to reconsider.. or be persuaded because the LIES,that you so encourage them to keep on thinking, is keeping them from the STRAIGHT PATH.. //
…by being a self-righteous, patronizing twat who claims not to hate gays, but then exhaustively cherry-picks the bible to justify why being gay is wrong.
If there is anybody here who is blind, Gascis, it is you: You claim gays are somehow wrong, and yet when we read about them, the wrongs being perpetrated include religiously motivated bullying, discrimination, and violence against LGBTs. You are the problem.