Despite a 28-year effort to get Taiwan to recognize same-sex marriage, Chi Chia-wei and his husband in all but name, have failed to persuade a Taiwanese court to strike down a ban preventing a government agency from registering their marriage. The decision, the ManilaTimes.net reports, is “a major setback for equal rights.”
Taiwan, an outlier in Asia for its more progressive stances on the environment, gender equality and human rights, has made no special effort to recognize the rights of the LGBT community. Despite this, however, Taiwan does not criminalize same-sex sexual activity and discrimination based on sexual orientation in education and employment has been banned statewide since 2003 and 2007 respectively. (The 2012 Taiwan Pride was attended by approximately 65,000 people making it the largest Pride event in all of Asia.)
For Chia-wei, this matters little in his life-long quest to marry the person he loves. The court ruled March 27 in favor of the agency (that refused to issue a marriage license) saying it did not violate the law which stipulates that “a marriage should be between a man and a woman.”
“The government is outdated and makes no progress over the years. This case concerns not just me but the welfare of all homosexual people. This is unfair and I will appeal,” Chi remarked. Another gay couple filed a similar complaint in 2011 to an administrative court over government refusal to register their marriage but decided to drop their case last year, citing death threats as one of the reasons. “We regret and are deeply saddened by the ruling . . . which shows that Taiwan stands still after 20 years while the United States and European countries are moving to support gay marriages,” Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy said in a prepared statement. We urge the court to face and acknowledge the importance of marital equal rights and return homosexual citizens their entitled rights to get married.”
