House Bill 634

A copy of House Bill 634 is available in PDF format for your reference here.

“An Act Prohibiting Discrimination On the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity And Providing Penalties Therefore”

1.Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity as Classification is Unreasonable and Against the “Equal Protection” clause

a.Unreasonable
In classifying persons or things, there should be a clear and distinct difference between two categories. This is because in legal terms, classification is defined as the grouping of persons or things similar to each other in certain particulars and different from all others in these same particulars (Constitutional Law by Justice Isagani Cruz, supra). There has to be what is called substantial distinction, as contrary to superficial difference. This is the reason why we could distinctively classify men from women (difference in reproductive roles), minors from adults (difference in age of consent), citizens from aliens (difference in nationality) etc. This distinction can be described with relative permanency in the characteristics of the distinction being made.

House Bill 634, the “Anti-Discrimination Act” was approved at the Committee on Civil, Political and Human Rights after just one public hearing on May 9, 2005.

1. HB 634 has only one new law in it: the refusal to “deny an application for a license, clearance, certification or any other document issued by governmental authorities…on the basis of the applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity; as provided by existing laws.” This opens the window for SAME-SEX UNIONS being granted licenses and/or legal recognition.

Article from Congress’ website on HB 634, the Anti-Discrimination Act, below . This Bill is the same HB 2784 in the previous Congress, and it was passed by Congress on third and final reading then.