A May 24, 2017 ruling by Taiwan’s Supreme Court declared the country Civil Code’s definition of marriage — between a man and a woman — as unconstitutional because it failed to protect all human rights. The Court gave Taiwanese legislators two years to legalize it, but Prime Minister Tsai Ing-wen (who ran on an equality platform) and other legislators were too timid to take action.
Their inaction allowed anti-gay religious petitioners to turn the issue into a non-binding November 24 ballot measure on that and whether public schools should teach kids about LGBTQ topics. Three U.S. anti-LGBTQ groups in particular — the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), MassResistance and International House of Prayer (IHOP) — helped local conservative groups organize and raise $33 million in preparation for the vote.
Related: One of China’s most famous novels has been remade into a steamy gay Taiwanese film
The country ended up voting against same-sex marriage and LGBTQ education by margins of around 70 percent, giving legislators 90 days to decide whether to act on the vote. The legislature took no action. Shortly after the vote, Taiwan’s Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Lu Tai-lang declared the vote a giant waste of time and energy because the rulings of the country’s highest court “cannot be touched.”
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The high court ruling gave legislators until May 24, 2019 to legalize same-sex marriage or else courts would be ordered to begin recognizing same-sex marriages automatically. Ultimately legislators passed a “compromise” bill that legalized same-sex unions but also limited adoption rights for same-sex couples. Now we imagine we’ll see lawsuits for increased adoption rights.
In recognition of the newly legalized same-sex unions, Taiwan’s Prime Minster tweeted, “On May 17th, 2019 in #Taiwan, #LoveWon. We took a big step towards true equality, and made Taiwan a better country.”
Luminosity
So proud of my home country to become the first in Asia to make same sex marriage a reality.
brd.h
Why Taiwanese guys are sexy AF like you?
Makemewanna
Yes true how are you?
pharaon.em.joe
Soon enough, Taiwan will be a first world country and america will be a third world country.
Kangol2
Congrats to Taiwan for taking this historic step!
Bryguyf69
Of note. Grindr’s president, Scott Chen, is Taiwanese. While the heterosexual Chen is obviously gay-friendly, and had spoken up for gay rights, he caused controversy last year by saying that “marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman.”. It will be interesting to see what he says about this.
Bryguyf69
This is a landmark event, given Taiwan’s location in Asia. However, I’ll still say that Ireland’s recognition of marriage equality is still the most momentous. If I’m not mistaken, it is still the only nation where marriage equality resulted from a popular vote. In other words, it was the true will of the people. All other nations, including Taiwan and the US, arrived at it through judicial action (i.e. the courts ruling that excluding gays is unconstitutional — what homophobes call “activist judges”). As this article states, most Taiwanese is the survey were against marriage equality. So hats off to the Irish. It was especially sweet given Ireland’s identification with Catholicism, e.g. “Irish Catholic.”. As an aside, I believe that a majority of American Catholics also supported marriage equality when the US was having the debate.
JessPH
Australia held a referendum too and the people overwhelmingly voted for SSM
Bryguyf69
JessPH – if I’m not mistaken, the Australian referendum was non-binding, and was done to give legislators a sense of where the country was. I don’t believe the Australian referendum directly legalized same-sex marriages. In contrast, the Irish vote was a direct legalization.
reesielover
YAY!!! I just ADORE Asian men. Now I can go there and get married.
Bryguyf69
This is promising but it is tempered by the fact that only 16 nations and The Vatican recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. All other nations and The United Nations itself, only recognize mainland China (aka The People’s Republic of China), relegating Taiwan (aka Republic of China) to an Observer State.
The practical effect is that nations are generally only required to recognize external marriages performed by other nations. That puts Taiwanese marriages in a gray area. While it’s never been a real problem with heterosexual marriages, one can see how it might become an issue. Countries that have marriage equality will obviously not cause a problem. But then you have countries like Armenia and Israel, which don’t perform gay marriage but recognizes all interNATIONal marriages. Since they are not among the 16 countries that recognize Taiwan as a nation, it can become an issue. Even in countries that perform gay marriages, you can see how it can become an issue if a conservative anti-immigrant regime takes over. They can use the technicality to invalidate recognition and immigration rights. Think Trump.
Of the 16 countries that do recognize Taiwan’s statehood, most are small island nations and none recognize marriage equality. None are located in Europe, Asia or America.
jonasalden
Taiwan is FULL of beautiful men, too! Gosh.