Same-sex marriage issue better left to Congress —Supreme Court

Arranging state recognition for same-sex relations is a job better left to Congress, the Supreme Court said as it took a "path of caution" in dismissing a same-sex marriage case it unanimously found to be deficient.

The court has released the 109-page ruling that dismissed a lawyer's petition for the legalization of same-sex marriages in the Philippines due to several procedural missteps, which went uncured by his claim of the "transcendental importance" of his case.

Penned by Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, the decision acknowledged same-sex couples "deserve legal recognition in some way" and said the Constitution's plain text does not define or restrict marriage on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity of expression.

"However, whether such recognition should come by way of the exact same bundle of rights granted to heterosexual couples in our present laws is a proposition that should invite more public discussion in the halls of Congress," the ruling stated.

The SC said a sweeping decision to allow same-sex marriages based on the petition "may do more harm than good to a historically marginalized community" and result in a delay for "more inclusive and egalitarian arrangements" the state can provide.

"The history of erasure, discrimination, and marginalization of the LGBTQI+ community impels this Court to make careful pronouncements – lest it cheapen the resistance, or worse, thrust the whole struggle for equality back to the long shadow of oppression and exclusion," the decision read.

It contains pages of laws and regulations that the court said would have to be impliedly amended if it had granted the petition, which asked for the nullification of Family Code provisions limiting marriage to a man and a woman.

"This Court cannot do what petitioner wants without arrogating legislative power unto itself and violating the principle of separation of powers," it said.

"The task of devising an arrangement where same-sex relations will earn state recognition is better left to Congress in order that it may thresh out the many issues that may arise."

The court made it clear that it understands that same-sex couples desire a "balanced recognition" of their choices, but also said the right time and the right case have yet to come.

"Yet, the time for a definitive judicial fiat may not yet be here. This is not the case that presents the clearest actual factual backdrop to make the precise reasoned judgment our Constitution requires," the ruling said. 

"Perhaps, even before that actual case arrives, our democratically-elected representatives in Congress will have seen the wisdom of acting with dispatch to address the suffering of many of those who choose to love distinctively, uniquely but no less genuinely and passionately."

Thin, underdeveloped petition

The decision minced no words in pointing out the deficiencies the court found in the petition filed by Jesus Falcis III, the young, openly gay lawyer who brought the case in 2015.

Because he has never applied for a marriage license and thus was never rejected, Falcis has suffered no direct injury by the limitation set in the Family Code, the court said. He was also found to have violated the doctrine of the hierarchy of courts and failed to present an actual case or controversy.

The Leonen ponencia stated his case was "woefully bereft of sufficient actual facts" to support its arguments, which means it still would not have survived even if the tribunal had relaxed its procedural rules.

Even his choice of respondent, the Civil Registrar General, did not go unnoticed. The court called the choice "manifestly misguided."

Though couples who were denied a marriage license eventually came to intervene in the case, the court found this to be an "ill-conceived attempt to prop up a thin and underdeveloped petition."

Same-sex marriage, the court said, is a matter that the LGBTQI+ community needs to deliberate on within their circles and through the political branches of government.

"Yet, petitioner has miserably failed to show proof that he has obtained even the slightest measure of consent from the members of the community that he purports to represent, and that LGBTQI+ persons are unqualifiedly willing to conform to the State's present construct of marriage," the decision stated.

It said constraining relationships of people who did not join the petition to the norm under existing laws would be the "most injurious thing" the tribunal could do.

"Petitioner courted disaster for the cause he chose to represent. He must have known what was at stake," the ruling said.

"Yet, he came to this Court scandalously unprepared, equipped with nothing more than empty braggadocio. For a shot at fame, he toyed with the hopes and tribulations of a marginalized class."

The SC found Falcis, his three fellow lawyers, and the intervenor-oppositor guilty of indirect contempt of court. Falcis was fined, the others were reprimanded, and all five of them were "sternly warned that further contemptuous acts shall be dealt with more severely." — MDM, GMA News