“Some believe it is not enough for Roman to have taken the ‘middle ground’ — to compromise, in other words — in pushing for the rights of the community. Some believe it is almost like selling out, giving up instead of giving in.”

What are relationships about, but giving, receiving and compromising?

Any relationship, be it personal or professional, will have better chances to survive if the parties involved are willing to meet each other halfway.

This is true for couples, for companies, for people and government. Each party is distinct, with similarities and differences, and everyone lives under a set of rules that guides them to coexist peacefully and hopefully able to reach compromises.

I think the world has become increasingly volatile because people have become less tolerant and giving, less willing to compromise.

Everyone wants to push their agenda, insisting their way is the only way, their way is the right way. This attitude never works.

What’s worse, people will find ways to push and pull, never mind if everybody falls in the end.

In the realm of politics and religion, such an attitude is most evident. The religious wars have existed for generations because people simply won’t accept or tolerate beliefs different from their own. The struggles of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) community is the same.

For decades, they sought acceptance, and when society became open enough to let more people come out of the closet to declare their uniqueness from (and sameness with) everyone else, they now want to be able to have the rights that heterosexual relationships enjoy.

The good news for them is that a same-sex civil union is actually constitutional. This was declared by Supreme Court acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio in a report last June 26, which was about the petition seeking to legalize same-sex marriage.

In the online portal report, Carpio said “same-sex civil union is based on the constitutional right to freedom of association. Freedom to associate with others is also cited in the same-sex civil union bill sponsored by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez pending at the lower chamber.”

He is quoted as follows: “Can two people of the same sex agree that their property relations will be governed by absolute community of property, they can also agree that when I die you will inherit [what I leave], they can agree that when I die, you will decide where I will be buried?

“Of course, because even without a law, that will be constitutional,” Carpio said.

Why did members and supporters of the LGBTQI community smash the position taken by Bataan Rep. Geradine Roman, the first openly transgender lawmaker in the country?

Some believe it is not enough for Roman to have taken the “middle ground” — to compromise, in other words — in pushing for the rights of the community. Some believe it is almost like selling out, giving up instead of giving in.

There is a huge difference between the two, of course.

Giving in means accepting the reality — which, in this case, is that “two people of the same sex can have an agreement regarding property, successional rights, and all other rights, and that’s not unconstitutional, and if that’s embodied in a law, that’s even stronger, but it does not go against your position that marriage is between a man and a woman,” according to Justice Carpio.

Giving up means not fighting for the rights of the community at all, or denying the needs they had long fought to be addressed.

For the most part, it could be a matter of semantics. A civil union and a marriage amount to a mutual partnership. Even if you put emotions into the equation, they are similar.

The bigger push, and perhaps that will take more time, is for marriage equality. In our society, where some 60 percent are still opposed to same-sex unions, the level of acceptance certainly will take time to improve.

Right now, a report goes, “only two in 10 Filipinos favor the proposal to legalize same-sex unions in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, according to a Social Weathers Stations (SWS) survey held in March but released only on Saturday, June 30.”

It’s been centuries for the cause of women’s equality. I suppose, given the present disposition of citizens of the world, it might take much less than that for the LGBTQI.

Making a compromise at this point, then, is not such a bad idea.