As a transgender pastor of a small Hong Kong church that welcomes all sexualities, Marrz Balaoro wants to conduct religious marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, but fears arrest — a battle he is now taking to the courts.
Despite growing support for gay marriage in the territory, campaigners have made little headway against stiff opposition from the city’s successive pro-Beijing governments and religious conservatives.
However, an unprecedented legal challenge filed by the Filipino Balaoro turns the more commonly heard religious argument opposing gay marriage on its head. In a filing with the territory’s High Court, he argues that his congregation’s freedom to worship — a right enshrined in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution — is being trampled on by the territory’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Photo: AFP
“All we ask for is to be allowed to worship and practice our religious faith in the eyes of God, free from the threat of persecution,” Balaoro said.
The 62-year-old pastor — who has worked as a domestic helper in Hong Kong since 1981 — knows that threat all too well.
In 2017, he was arrested on suspicion of breaking Hong Kong’s marriage laws for officiating “Holy Union” ceremonies at the territory’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight (LGBTS) Christian Church. The denomination originated in the Philippines, but has a small following among gay domestic workers in Hong Kong.
The union ceremonies were religious blessings for same-sex couples with no legal weight and prosecutors eventually dropped the case.
Despite repeated attempts, Balaoro was unable to get written assurances from authorities that he would not be arrested again should he conduct another union.
His legal application seeks a court declaration that such same-sex religious ceremonies are not illegal.
Balaoro is clear that his church’s same-sex ceremonies have no legal substance under Hong Kong law, but he has said that they carry great spiritual importance for his church members.
“They know this is just a celebration of love and togetherness,” he told reporters, describing the occasions as “joyous.”
Hong Kong does not recognize same-sex marriage or civil unions, and only decriminalized homosexuality in 1991.
A separate case has been lodged by two Hong Kong men directly challenging the same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional.
However, Balaoro’s application is unusual because it includes a freedom of religion argument.
In the filing requesting the court to hear their case, his lawyers said that legislation restricting the “celebration of the religious rite of marriage only to heterosexual monogamous couples” is discriminatory.
Originally from the Philippine province of Abra, Balaoro has identified as a male since the age of five.
“When I was younger, my parents could not even impose on me to wear dresses and skirts, not until I went to a private Catholic [girls’] school... I wore shorts under my skirt and I wore a T-shirt under my long-sleeves, and I took off everything on my way out of the school campus,” he said, laughing.
On top of his full-time job as a domestic worker, he became a pastor in 2013, established the Hong Kong branch of the LGBTS Christian Church a year later and was ordained as a reverend in 2017.
Born into a Catholic family, he stopped going to church during high school and college, citing the discrimination that he faced.
When he later encountered the slogan of the LGBTS Christian Church — “You are accepted for who you are, and safe for what you are” — he found his calling to propagate faith with advocacy.
“I think it is my role, it is my duty, not only to the LGBT community, but to all people out there [to say] that we exist and there’s nothing wrong with us,” Balaoro said.
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