The Religious Queer: The Discourse on the Western Gay Politics And How Religion Is Implicated Within

Reflecting upon my being a practicing Catholic while also being queer at the same time, which I recounted in my previous post entitled:  The Catholic, The Queer, and Probably an Unbeliever Too?, made me think of the discourse on the Western Gay Politics into which I was introduced while still in the graduate school. According to this discourse, the Western societies – unlike the differently developed societies – are modern and progressive because the historically marginalised subjects such as women and queers in these societies are liberated from subjugations. The de-secularisation of the Western societies that has taken place in the second half of the 21^st century – according to many scholars both in social sciences and the humanities – proved to be quite favourable towards those who have been hitherto marginalized and excluded from the norms of heteronormative masculinity.

My First Gay Pride: A Plato’s Cave Experience

In The Bakla and The Gay: While I was being a bakla, she was being gay,  I recounted the conversation I had many years ago while still living in the Philippines with a Filipino-American named Leslie. Leslie lives and grew up in the US and was spending her summer vacation in the Philippines that year. Although we barely knew each other,   we clicked so much and instantly became good friends. We became so close that I opened up to her about my being love sick to a good looking man named Jordan.

As I opened up to her, I was really taken aback when she asked whether Jordan was gay like myself or not and how genuinely disappointed she was to learn from me that Jordan is in fact straight. Little did I know back then, that unlike in the Philippines, gays have relationship with gays in the US where she grew up. I put my confusion aside; did not bother to ask for further clarification and just continued with our conversation. Leslie’s response begun to make sense to me after few months when a friend of mine introduced me to the gay pride in Malate, Manila.