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Historically, will it be a breakthrough for Taiwan, a lighthouse for Others?!

After the local elections held in November, the society sort of saw a fuzzy beam of hope from a LGBTI-friendlier new politics in Taiwan. Next Monday (22/12/14) the rainbow factors in changing Taiwan are expected to reach another peak. Taiwan’s parliament (the Legislative Yuan) will first time substantially review the Marriage Equality Act (MEA) - legalisation of same-sex marriage out of the whole package of the draft ‘Diverse Formation of Family Union Law‘ which also includes civil partnership system and multiple-member family system but the latter two have never been placed onto the agenda.

After it is formally set up on the agenda for ages, MEA’s progress has been promoted better since the legislator Mei-Nu Yu was elected to chair the Judicial Commission of the parliament. She has always been regarded the most important contributor in the legislative forum, besides other supporters such as the legislator Li-Chiun Cheng. In fact, there have been more and more furious conflict between Taiwan Family Association (opposing to the same-sex marriage) and the Rainbow Coalition (mainly contributed by the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, Lobby Alliance for LGBT Human Rights Declaration, Intersex, Transgender and Transsexual People Care Association, Taiwan Gender Queer Rights Advocacy Alliance, and Appendectomy Project), when the MEA is step and step more becoming true.

In the fear of facing with great opposition from religious the conservative groups, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) attempts to procrastinate all the efforts in this work, disregarding the recommendations made by the human rights experts whom are invited by the MOJ to review Taiwan’s implementation of human rights treaties that human rights protection shall not subject to public opinion, and the fact that all current polls have shown that majority of Taiwanese support the same-sex marriage. Actually there are recently many hot debates upon legalising same-sex marriage occurred in other East Asian countries as well, including South Korean, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Playing a pioneer role as Taiwan in East Asia by creating a more secular, liberal, and democratic society which Taiwanese are always proud of, whether Taiwan can build itself as another model in safeguarding equality and LGBTI rights, next Monday will be a landmark moment for the whole world to watch – becoming a lighthouse for others, or a retrogression for Taiwan’s society as a whole to suffer.







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