The President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte seems to have ruled out same-sex marriage—despite previously promising to consider the issue.
During a pre-election forum in January last year, Duterte said that there was “an error in the Bible” and that marriages were for “Adam, Eve and the gays.”
However— while speaking to a small Filipino community in Burma this week— Duterte said that gay marriage “won’t work for us”.
“We’re Catholics…and there’s the Civil Code, which says that [a man] can only marry a woman," he said. “That’s the law in the Philippines.”
He also condemned the transgender community, pointing to a recent issue of Time magazine that featured a trans woman on the cover.
“That is their culture,” he said, referring to western countries. “That’s for them. That can’t apply to us, because we are Catholics."
Duterte spoke about family members of his who are gay but nevertheless emphasised that: “Wherever God has placed you, stay there.”
The controversial president has previously made homophobic comments about US Ambassador Philip Goldberg saying, “I had an argument with their gay ambassador, the son of a whore. He pissed me off.”
A 2013 survey found that 73 per cent of Filipinos thought that ‘homosexuality should be accepted in society’ yet there are no anti-discrimination laws in place for the LGBT+ community and same-sex couples are unable to marry or adopt.
