Taiwan Proposes Asia's First Same-Sex Marriage Law
Taiwan Proposes Asia's First Same-Sex Marriage Law

Participants march in the annual Taiwan Pride parade in Taipei, Taiwan on Oct. 27, 2018.
Alberto Buzzola—LightRocket/Getty Images
BY
CASEY QUACKENBUSH
FEBRUARY 21, 2019
Taiwan
presented Asia’s first same-sex marriage bill on Thursday, draft legislation that would grant similar legal protections to same-sex couples as heterosexual ones, Reuters reports.
The bill is a first for Asia, a region not generally known for upholding LGBT rights.
Last year, Taiwan’s voters opposed marriage equality in a host of referendums, opting to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Voters supported drafting a special law for same-sex partnerships, which activists cited as discriminatory, according to Reuters.
The new bill has also been met with criticism from conservative groups that oppose same-sex unions. On Thursday, the Coalition for the Happiness of Our Next Generation called the draft “unacceptable.”
“Controversies are expected about the proposal, but I really hope our homosexual friends can wait a bit longer,” Premier Su Tseng-chang said in a statement, according to Reuters. “This might fall short of expectations, but after all it’s a start.”
Taiwan’s Constitutional Court voted to legalize marriage equality in 2017 on the basis that it was unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples marriage rights. The government was given until May 2019 to implement the ruling, which did not specify how to adopt it.