The draft bill for “diverse family formation” (多元成家) has been a topic of much debate, and has created a lot of turbulence in Christian churches. Some churches have posted videos opposing the bill on their Facebook pages, telling members to share the videos as widely as possible. A chief physician at my hospital who goes to my church wrote an article urging hospital staff to sign an online petition opposing the bill and supporting the existing marriage system. On Sept. 18, Christian ministers held a press conference with leaders of other major religious groups to urge the public to oppose the bill.
The First Commandment states: “You shall have no other gods before me,” and in none of the stories in the Bible do Christians collaborate with people of other faiths. For Christian ministers to put aside this separation and join hands with religious rivals was an eye-opener that confused me.
I understand that some Christian leaders hope to participate in political reform to help promote justice and love of God in Taiwan and so they make every effort to support any activities in opposition to same-sex marriage.
The question is if they really have such great passion for all kinds of political reform. The Bible says that a husband and wife are no longer two, but one: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” So I wonder why Christian leaders do not push for an amendment to ban divorce. After all, Taiwan’s divorce rate is the third-highest in the world, with an average of 153 couples filing for divorce every day.
If you have been working at a hospital long enough, you will see that often the people who sit at patients’ bedsides taking care of them are neighbors, fellow veterans, unmarried partners of many years or members from the same church. They may have even lived together under one roof, treating each other as family.
However, do you know what kind of treatment hospitals accord these companions? Because they are not the patients’ parents, spouses or biological children, they cannot be given details of the patient’s condition, or allowed to sign consent forms for medical exams or surgery — the right to make medical decisions rests solely with blood relatives who may be far away and who may even have abandoned the patients at the hospital.
Think of it this way: Jesus is receiving treatment at a hospital one day, but the attending physician refuses to reveal his condition to his 12 apostles. No matter how anxious or close they are, they have no right to know his condition since they have no legal relationship.
In 2004, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan released the results of a study declaring that homosexuality is not a sin.
Of course, everyone has the right to show their support for or opposition to same-sex marriage. However, I am a Christian, and I truly hope that the legislature will pass the third reading of the bill for diversity in family formation.
Lee Yen-fan is an associate head nurse.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS