More than 1,000 LGBT rights advocates and opponents yesterday demonstrated outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei ahead of a cross-caucus negotiation on bills related to same-sex marriage.
At today’s cross-caucus negotiation, legislators are to discuss three bills that would, respectively, legalize same-sex marriage, same-sex unions or a same-sex family member registration system.
While the first bill, proposed by the Executive Yuan, would apply most of the marriage rights stated in the Civil Code to same-sex couples, the other two, which are based on suggestions from conservative groups and are respectively proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), would offer fewer rights to same-sex couples.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
To back the Executive Yuan’s bill, more than 40 same-sex couples yesterday rallied in front of the Legislative Yuan, some bringing their children.
“The Executive Yuan’s version has made some compromises, but it would still help protect families such as mine by allowing people to adopt the biological child of their same-sex spouse,” said Jay Lin (林志杰), who is raising twin sons with his partner.
The other two bills would at best give same-sex parents temporary guardianship over their non-biological children, he said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
If those two bills were passed, “our family would be treated as a second-rate family,” he said.
Cindy, who with her partner of nine years is raising two children she conceived through artificial fertilization, said that her family is the same as every other.
“We love our children deeply. They are not missing anything in their life except for legal protection,” she said.
Should the Executive Yuan bill fail to pass, their children would not have a legal parent if she passed away, she said.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 protesters led by the Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance rallied on a neighboring street to oppose the bill.
More than 7 million people last year voted in favor of keeping the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, said alliance president Tseng Hsien-ying (曾獻瑩), who initiated the referendum.
“The referendum result cannot be changed by any legislator or even the president,” he said.
If the definition of marriage is altered, families, education and culture would face fundamental changes, he added.
The DPP has advocated for increased public participation in national policies through referendums, but now “only President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the Council of Grand Justices are allowed to call the shots,” said Lai, who briefly joined the rally.
“There are only about a dozen grand justices, but we have more than 7 million people,” he added.
The Council of Grand Justices on May 24, 2017, declared the lack of language guaranteeing the right of same-sex couples to get married in the Civil Code unconstitutional, and required that a law or amendment be introduced to legalize same-sex marriage within two years.
The interpretation says that the legislature must pass a law or amendment to legalize same-sex marriage within two years, or it would be automatically legalized.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS