It's 12 o'clock. Do you know what your media is printing?

This is the Inquirer.

This is the Inquirer on crack.

In case you don't click on the link, it's a stunning study in homophobia, written by no less than Inquirer columnist and, apparently, retired Supreme Court Justice Isagani Cruz. Some choice excerpts:

Only recently, the more impressionable among our people wildly welcomed a group of entertainers whose main proud advertisement was that they were “queer.” - Apparently, to like the Queer Eye guys makes you "impressionable."

Queer people -- that’s the sarcastic term for them -- have come out of the closet where before they carefully concealed their condition. - Take note: "carefully concealed" their "condition." As in, sakit ito, at dapat itago.

Cruz states that, in the 1930s, there was only one gay boy in their school, and one peddling on their street, who "provided diversion" for people. Ergo, entertainment daw siya. Anyway, dalawa lang daw ang bading sa area nila n'ung araw. Ows. Maybe the others were in the closet. He adds: The change came, I think, when an association of homos dirtied the beautiful tradition of the Santa Cruz de Mayo by parading their kind as the “sagalas” instead of the comely young maidens who should have been chosen to grace the procession. Instead of being outraged by the blasphemy, the watchers were amused and, I suppose, indirectly encouraged the fairies to project themselves. - Ahem. An association of "homos" "dirtied" the procession and people should have been outraged by the "fairies'" "blasphemy." I can't believe I'm reading intolerant shit like this in 2006.

He then talks about bumping into some gay students and listening in on their conversation, which put him off. Says he about one of them: That pansy would have been mauled in the school where my five sons (all machos) studied during the ’70s when all the students were certifiably masculine. - Wow. All macho huh? And you say all the students were certifiably masculine? I suppose you watched all of them having sex with women eh? To certify them? And an incitement to gay-bashing? Better and better.

Of course, Cruz is careful to state: The observations I will here make against homosexuals in general do not include the members of their group who have conducted themselves decorously, with proper regard not only for their own persons but also for the gay population in general. A number of our local couturiers, to take but one example, are less than manly but they have behaved in a reserved and discreet manner unlike the vulgar members of the gay community who have degraded and scandalized it. - So Cruz is okay with gay people, as long as they "behave" themselves, act "manly," and hide what they are, conforming to his standards. Anything less is "vulgar," "degrading" and "scandalous." How magnanimous. Though personally, I believe that if gay people want to wear loud pink-and-red-and-purple dresses with strings and strings of flashing lightbulbs, scream at the top of their voices, flip their wrists for all the world to see, and dance up and down the street from 12 am to 12 pm, that is their goddamn right. Because no one should be able to tell anyone how they should act or dress or live.

Our educated retired Supreme Court Justice then goes on to talk about "the third sex": The permissive belief now is that homosexuals belong to a separate third sex with equal rights as male and female persons instead of just an illicit in-between gender that is neither here nor there. - From what I've heard, gay and lesbian men and women simply consider themselves men and women, who just happen to be attracted to the same sex. Therefore, they should be afforded the rights they should have had since birth in the first place. And transgendered people consider themselves to be people who should have been born as the opposite sex. And should therefore be afforded the rights of that particular sex (which should be the rights of all sexes). So there is no "illicit in-between gender that is neither here nor there."

I suggest you click on the link and read the whole article for full effect.

This is Manuel L. Quezon III's response to the article. Good for him.

And this is Cruz's response to Quezon's. I guess when you're a bigot, you need to get in the last word eh?

This is the Inquirer doing damage control. Which is basically just them listing out a bunch of gay statistics and then ending by quoting "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Which is just pandering and patronizing, really.

Heh. Reminds me of a classmate of mine in high school who immortalized himself in our yearbook by declaring he hates gay people and for them to "watch out." Though this guy wasn't particularly bright. Certainly, he wasn't a retired Supreme Court Justice and columnist for a respected daily.

Now I normally would send an angry letter to the Inquirer, but I've already done that twice in the past, and gotten responses both times. A third time and they might think I have a personal vendetta against them. Which I don't. I just have one against Tim Yap's Super!-shitty columns in the Inquirer's Super! section. But there's nothing stopping anyone else, especially if you're actually gay. Shit like this shouldn't see print in major dailies. I once said that when you're given space in a daily, you're given the opportunity to reach out and influence thousands, maybe millions. Bigots like this shouldn't be handed that power.

Firebomb him people.