Taiwan MPs told to back government in Asia’s first same-sex marriage law

KUALA LUMPUR: Taiwan’s lawmakers must back the government’s draft same-sex law and make the self-ruled island the first place in Asia to allow such unions, LGBT+ campaigners said yesterday, ahead of a key vote in parliament this week.

Taiwan has until May 24 to legalise same-sex marriage after a 2017 ruling by the island’s top court. The court did not give specific guidance on how laws regulating such unions should be drawn up.

Parliament will vote on Friday on same-sex marriage but there are three bills that have been proposed - one by the government and two by lawmakers which LGBT+ groups have described as discriminatory.

“We won’t accept any more compromise because the (government’s) bill is already our bottom line,” said Jennifer Lu, the chief coordinator of Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan, an alliance of groups that support gay rights.

“If one of the two other bills is passed, we will launch another constitutional court challenge,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Despite some limitations on adoption and foreign spouses, Lu said the government’s draft law would give same-sex couples similar legal protections for marriage as heterosexuals.

The coalition is urging supporters to gather outside the parliament on Tuesday and Friday ahead of the vote.

Legalisation of same-sex marriage in Taiwan has become complex after voters opposed marriage equality in a series of referendums last November, dealing a blow to the island’s reputation as a beacon of liberalism in Asia.

More than two-thirds of those who voted in the referendum wanted to retain the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman under the civil law.

The government’s bill proposed same-sex marriage to be legalised under a separate law - a move it said respected both the court ruling and the referendum results.