Normalizing acceptance and equality: The gay ads in the PH

The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic nation. You would think that since the religion is all about an all-encompassing kind of love that people would be less bigoted. (You would also think that they would not support maniacs who openly declare that people suspected of wrongdoings should be shot dead like animals for slaughter but that subject is for another post.) Unfortunately, we have a President who calls his enemies bakla as a derogatory term, a senator who said that gay people are worse than animals, and journalists who said that gay people should not flaunt their gayness or that gender is something that can be “taught” from an early age.

When you have all these influential people spewing misinformation and hateful rhetoric magnified by sheep in online forums who echo whatever they say, an active campaign about acceptance and equal rights becomes imperative to make up for the lack of LGBT-related information in our schools and discrimination rooted on ignorance.

Because of this, we applaud efforts by brands to break barriers and promote acceptance. Bench started the campaign three years ago with a bold ad of a same-sex couple on a billboard in EDSA followed up by the recent viral ad of a gay son and his accepting father. Meanwhile, SMART Communications made international news in 2016 for an ad of the same theme about the anxieties of coming out.