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| Photo courtesy of PhilippineConcerts.com |
I
am talking about religious fundamentalism: the kind of religious fanaticism
that attacks religious freedom and shoves their own religiosity down people’s
throats. And with recent developments such as President Obama’s same-sex marriage stance, and the debate on the Reproductive Health bill, these medieval
forces are once again volting in behind the guise of morality and respect for
religious beliefs, to attack the very thing that makes this country liberal.
Its
most prominent victim today is Lady Gaga.
These medieval forces claim that the Grammy-award winning singer is the epitome
of Satanism. From the lyrics to her famous hits, down to her flamboyant,
rebellious fashion statements, it all cries foul with pagan and satanic stench.
Not to be outdone by their counterparts in South Korea and Indonesia, these
forces have also called for a ban on the singer’s “Born This Way” concert at the Mall of Asia Arena this weekend. Their
approach may not be medieval at all, with placards and press conferences
replacing stones and pitchforks, but the obsolete, if not redundant, ideology
that goes with it is still very much potent. It is the same potent ideology
that drove a certain “national hero” and “public servant” to issue anti-gay marriage comments when he is supposed to be training for his next fight. It is
the same potent ideology that drove a certain beauty queen to bash the LGBT community on Twitter. It is the same potent ideology that brought hurt and
discrimination to the hearts and minds of many innocent gays and lesbians, exterminated
suspected witches and wizards in many parts of Europe in the medieval courts of
Inquisition, and brought to life notorious criminals like the Ku Klux Klan and
Osama bin Laden.
