'For me, Pride Month also means celebrating my freedom from a high-control doomsday group who made me feel that I was detestable and worthy of mistreatment...' Opinion PrideMonth Pride2023
I vividly remember sitting alone with three middle-aged men as I confessed my sexual experience with a same-sex member. My hands grew colder as the minutes passed, with nothing but the fluorescent lights and the familiar stink of the old vinyl floor to divert my attention to. As if being a woman discussing these things almost forcibly was not intrusive enough, they were shamelessly asking for details of the “sin” I committed.
Shunning, as one of their basic teachings, is enforced to “protect the congregation and discipline unrepentant wrongdoers.” According to them, those who will not obey “would interfere with Jehovah’s discipline if [they] associate with a disfellowshipped person.” Who could have known that an organization with a very kind and loving façade could treat me this inhumanely? The grief of losing the people I love was inexplicable. But my story is not unique.
Children are not spared from this indoctrination. The organization even crafted a worksheet intended to train teenagers how to assert this belief on other people, and video material about what a grade school child may say if someone they know has same-sex parents. The damage of religion-fueled disdain on the LGBTQ+ community is heavily observed in a country like the Philippines, where traditional Christianity holds power over public policies and even basic rights, and where protection of the gay community is denied even when such protection does not infringe on anyone else’s rights.This 2023, I am planning to join a Pride March for the first time.
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