PRINCESS ANGEL LUCAÑAS CHS 3- SECTION J

ETHICAL STAND ON LEGALIZATION OF DIVORCE

"When people divorce, it's always such a tragedy but if people stay together, it can be even worse, at
the same time." I agree. Yes, filing a divorce would be a tragedy in your marriage and family, but I
believe, it would be more tragic if the couple would stay together without love and respect. Honestly, I
am a product of a broken family. My mom and dad got separated even before I was still in my mother's
womb. The reason they separated is my father was violent towards my mother. When they were still
together, my father was an alcoholic drinker and every time he is drunk, my mother would always be
beaten by him. Hearing this story from my mother, it made my heart melt and I can't imagine the
trauma, stress, and the phobia that she had when she was still with my father. This is the reason why I
am strongly in favor of divorce.
You might say, divorce dishonor the sanctity of marriage and destroys the family, but for me, it
is not. I believe, that divorce doesn't mean dishonoring the sanctity of marriage but rather a freedom for
women from their abusive husbands and a chance to find happiness where they can be respected, love
and cared for, which is what they truly deserve. But of course, even though I support the legalization of
divorce, I still support and encourage couples to fix their broken marriage first, and if it cannot be, then
turn to divorce as their last resort. For me, personally, marriage is only best ideally in principle but it
simply does not work unless women are treated with honor, dignity and respect and for it to work,
there cannot be abuse of any kind, neither emotional, physical, psychological nor stingy neglect.

ETHICAL STAND ON PREMARITAL SEX, AND SINGLENESS

"Is sex between consenting adults outside marriage ethical?" For me, sex between consenting adults
outside marriage is unethical. Why? Simple, it is written in the Scripture. In fact, Exodus 22:16-17 as
written: "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay
the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If the father refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the
bride-price for virgins". Relative to this is 1 Corinthians 6:18 reads: "Flee from sexual immorality. Every
other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own
body. " Yes, the Scripture may not have explicitly imply 'thou shalt not have sex before marriage', but
this definitely does not mean that it is permitted.
The fact that "sexual immorality" is denounced in these passages from the New Testament is
clear proof that sex outside marriage is an unethical act. It's easy for people to think that the Bible does
not say anything about sex outside marriage, but that's because they tend to look for negative
statements: a condemnation or "thou shalt not". However, the Bible expresses God's perspective mainly
in positive terms. And I believe, if we just learn to read the Scriptures beyond the shallow terms used,
we can see that sex belongs to marriage, thus it should not be done unless a man and a woman is bound
by marriage. The same goes to extramarital sex in Hebrews 13:4 as written, "Let the marriage in honor
among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and
adulterous". Being an adulterer would not do us good, it can destroy family and even ourselves. It is
sexually immoral and unethical. Our body is the temple of our soul thus, we should not do anything
immoral that would cause destruction to it. We should treat it with love and purity for it is God's
greatest treasure bestowed upon us all.
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ETHICAL STAND ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE

Ever since I was a child, I have always been fond of playing toys of boys like cars, guns, airplanes,
etc. and I always hated wearing dresses and skirts. Even when I was in my junior years, it never changed
and there were times when I questioned my gender identity of whether I am straight, bisexual nor
lesbian. I remembered, there was this girl that I liked very much to the point that I always think of her
every night. Honestly, I wanted her to like me that time so I planned to pursue her. Until one day, my
grandmother talked to me and the only thing that struck the most to me is, “God created man in His
own image while the woman was taken out from man as companion for man thus, there can be only,
man and woman. There is no other gender besides these two. What you are feeling right now is only a
challenge and temptation and you should not let it control and take over you”. After hearing this from
my grandmother, I decided to stop myself. I made myself busy to forget my feelings for the girl and read
bible verses sometimes to remind me that no matter what happens, always find the beginning of it all,
God. In this way, I can stop myself from succumbing to the temptation and become someone that I
should not. Yes, it was not easy, but I managed to overcome it through the words of God.
Homosexual act is a choice but sexual orientation is not something we can control of. I am not
against the people of homosexual orientation because I have been there, but the homosexual activity, I
condemned. Same sex marriage as a homosexual act is viewed as acts of depravity and intrinsically
disordered. As we all know, sex belongs to marriage and marriage belongs to sex thus, if same sex
marriage is approved, men of the same sex or women of the same sex bound by marriage will have an
intercourse which is, an act of abomination in the Scripture, as written in Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not
lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” For me, this passage clearly explicitly suggests
that gay male sex is forbidden in the eyes of God. But sadly, many among us today have set aside these
teaching on homosexual activity. Not only do they declare it, not sinful, but they even celebrate it as
thought it were good. It is bad enough when non-believers do this, however, it is even more tragic when
people who call themselves Catholics and Christians resorted to such things.

ETHICAL STAND ON LGBTQIA+ FAMILIES

In the Bible, there are many positive teachings about adoption in general, I can say. However, it
universally condemns homosexuality as immoral and unnatural sin against God. As I have observed in
our world today, in countries where same sex marriage is legalized, many among LGBTQIA+ people
practiced homosexual adoption. Although, homosexual adoption is not mentioned in the Scripture, the
homosexual factor itself cannot be ignored as many of us know that for adoption to be legal, the parents
should be legally bound by marriage which would mean that same sex marriage should be legalized in
order for homosexual adoption to be legalized as well. Gay adoption treats a gay “family” as equal to
that to a heterosexual family and that violates the biblical model for the family unit as ordained by God.
Some people support the idea of gay adoption or homosexual adoption by pointing to the needs
of children on adoption waiting lists, for the reason that it’s better to have gay parents than having no
parents at all. Yes, we may believe that gay parents have the same parenting capabilities as heterosexual
parents and homosexual adoption is beneficial for orphans, but it cannot be denied that homosexuality is
a perversion of God’s design and a homosexual couple cannot form a “family”, according to God’s
definition of family in Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 2:24. God’s design for the family is that children grow up
in a stable, loving environment provided by a man and a woman in a committed, lifelong relationship and
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this design is clearly seen when God created Adam and Eve and commanded them to have children. I’m
not saying that adoption should be restricted to stable nuclear family because the Bible does not directly
address the issue of who should be allowed to adopt but if we take a look on the ideal adoptive
situation on the Bible, we cannot biblically support adoption being restricted to that ideal. But when it
comes to the question, should Christians be supporters of gay adoption? If I am going to base it on what
I’ve understand in the Scripture about homosexuality, my answer would be no. Homosexuality is a
perversion of the very nature of what a family is supposed to be and as a Christian, I do not support
something that directly contradicts God’s will. Afterall, the child’s greatest need is not necessarily to
have two parents but rather to be cared for in godly, nurturing way and to have godly role models in his
or her life.

ETHICAL STAND ON GENDER DYSPHORIA

The chasm between the biblical view of sexuality and its secular view grows wider as time
advances. Social media and the entertainment industries have greatly influenced and even celebrate now
“gender fluidity” as a more enlightened way of thinking than the biblical view. The trend has become
phenomenal and has grown quickly even celebrities are making headlines to this trend. As we can see,
our society faces unexpected legal and ethical challenges as transgender-identified people compete on
sort teams and use public restrooms of their non-biological sex. Not only that, parents increasingly
allow their underage children to chemically and surgically alter their bodies through sex change and
what’s more alarming is that several states have now permit minors to do so without their parents’
consent.
This ongoing shift of morality is evident in the Christian response to these trends as well,
defying God’s design of human beings. Changes in the secular culture are also changing our vocabulary of
for example, “gender” which no longer means male or female as written in Genesis 1:27, “So God
created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them.”
If we examine this verse carefully, we will understand that it does not say that God is “androgynous”.
The line “male and female He created them,” it lies an extremely significant truth that in terms of
Godward relation, “man” or “mankind” is one: all of us, men and women alike are created equally “in
His image” but amongst ourselves we are differentiated by sex as a race, we are divided into two
groups, halves or component parts – male and female. With that being said, as a Christian, I am against
transgenderism especially if it results to sex change which I condemned as Deuteronomy 22:5 reads, “A
woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these
things is an abomination to the Lord your God.” For me, if you are going to undergo sex change, it’s like
you are wearing a man’s garment or vice versa that is not supposed to be worn by you, like changing
into someone you are not in the first place.
Disagreeing with transgenderism does not mean that I deny the pain of gender dysphoria. Of
course, it’s something that we have no control of and I believe that no one deserves to be discriminated
and bullied because of that. All of us deserves to be treated equally with respect, love, and compassion,
but it doesn’t mean that it’s necessary to pass the SOGIE bill because there are already existing laws
such as the Senate Bill 935 or the “Anti-Discrimination Act” that safeguards the rights of citizens against
discrimination which applies to all, whether you are from LGBTQIA+ community or heterosexual
community, it doesn’t matter. But what I would like to emphasize here is that a man cannot be a woman
and a woman cannot become a man. Many of transgender movements claim that a man who thinks he’s
a woman can really be a woman, and vice versa. In fact, we can see this in many ways – from preferred
PRINCESS ANGEL LUCAÑAS CHS 3- SECTION J

pronouns, sex reassignment surgeries and demands to use the restroom of perceived rather than the
given or at birth gender. However, the problem here is that, for me, it is only a philosophical claim that
is not true and can never be true, in any way or form. I mean, a man’s chromosomes cannot be
engineered into female chromosomes. Altering one’s appearance cosmetically or surgically cannot
change the underlying reality of a person’s biological make-up and more importantly, the psychology of
the mind cannot override the facts of a person’s biological markers.