Disappointment with the nation’s two major political parties for overlooking gay rights, despite repeated promises, will be the main theme of this year’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) parade in Taipei on Saturday.
“Politicians always say that they support the gay rights movement during election campaigns, but their support never turns into real action once they get elected,” Ann Tung (童楚楚), convener-in-chief of this year’s LGBT Pride Parade in Taipei told a press conference yesterday morning.
She said that during the last presidential campaign, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) appeared in a press conference right before the LGBT Pride Parade in 2007 announced his support for gay rights.
KMT
“In 2003, when Ma was mayor of Taipei, he said publicly that the city government had no problem with legalizing gay marriage once the central government allowed it and the Legislative Yuan revised relevant laws,” Tung said. “Now that he’s heading the central government, is he doing anything to improve gay rights or push for legalizing gay marriage?”
J.J. Lai (賴正哲), the owner of Gin Gin’s Bookstore, the country’s first bookstore specializing in books, music and DVDs related to homosexual topics, said that recently Ma still boasted about having organized a LBGT festival during his term as Taipei mayor.
“But what is he doing now — with more power as president — to promote gay rights?” Lai asked.
DPP
As for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Tung said that although the DPP took power with the promise to make Taiwan a “human rights state” in 2000 and drafted a human rights bill that included clauses to protect gay rights, “the promise remained an empty one as the human rights bill never became law and was never even sent to the legislature for review.”
Hence, participants in this year’s parade will hold up a giant blue banner and a giant green banner — representing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the DPP — to make an “X” sign over a dark heart to express their disappointment at the two parties’ “dark-hearted” promises, organizers of this year’s parade told a news conference yesterday morning.
“We understand that there are a lot of obstacles to overcome and we don’t expect things to change overnight,” Lai said. “But the government and the politicians should keep their words by making at least some small changes.”
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