Taiwan approves same-sex marriage in first for Asia

Nice. Welcome to the modern age Taiwan.

I dont know why people are talking of Japan. Taiwan and Japan, seperate custom, history and culture. Japan is far, far older and has a culture thats lasted. Japanese are reluctant to change laws that have worked good. Furthermore, such a change is not productive since Japan needs more children.

Come on, sport. No need to troll and insert more grammatical mistakes than usual.

Just give Taiwan some credit.

Congratulations, Taiwan! I loved you already, and now I admire you that little bit more!

A great victory for equality. Congrats to the the Taiwanese BLT community.

Somewhere out there, Tu'er Shen must be smiling. Congratulations Taiwan!

Good on Taiwan. When will the rest of Asia join the new millennia?

Totally gay gokai is optimistic that Japan will do the same! A majority of people now support it. (Don't know when...)

I’m thinking it will still take another 5-10 years. But it’s coming.

Great move for Taiwan ! A reference in Asia.

Ganbare Japan!May 17 10:51 pm JST

I dont know why people are talking of Japan.

... because JapanToday...

While some Asian countries are dragging their heels on this issue, they aren't anywhere near as tardy as Islamic countries all of which seem to be intransigent on the issue.

Not all the news in the world is bad. In some places, love is still triumphing.

Good news.

Congratulations !

I wonder how Japan will react.

I'm wondering even more how China will react.

I thought I heard that a referendum or opinion poll or similar of Taiwanese population were not in favour of this. wonder how much demand there is for SSM.

In May 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry, and that the Legislative Yuan must amend the laws to align with the constitution within 2 years. That ruling upset the anti-gay marriage camps who came out in force.

Also in 2017 the Referendum Act was reformed, making it easier to get questions on the election ballots. Previously, signatures from 5% of the electorate were needed, but now only 1% were needed - about 280,000 signatures. This meant in the 2018 election, 10 referendum questions appeared on the ballots - each spearheaded by a group with their own agenda.

5 of the 10 questions regarded gay marriage or gender equality etc. - most spearheaded by anti-gay groups. The results for the gay marriage questions were considered poor. Possibly due to their wording, or larger turn-outs of older voters. You can see more here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Taiwanese_referendum

However those questions were not binding, whereas the Constitutional Court's ruling still stood. Today we saw that implemented.

Good on Taiwan!! May Japan be next!

Totally gay gokai is optimistic that Japan will do the same! A majority of people now support it. (Don't know when...)

I thought I heard that a referendum or opinion poll or similar of Taiwanese population were not in favour of this.  wonder how much demand there is for SSM.

Congratulations, Taiwan!

I must say, the results of the referendum were very, very suspicious. Polls even before the topic of a referendum was bought up showed consistently that the majority were fine with SSM. The referendum brought out the nasty Christian extremists, along with a lot of help from American evangelicals.

@Jim

You’re forgetting that Canberra has chosen to recognise mainland China.

Difficult for downunder cobbers to show any kind of open support for Taiwan....

I dont know why people are talking of Japan.

Because there are LGBT people in Japan too.

Because Japan is in Asia, and people tend to watch what their neighbors do.

such a change is not productive since Japan needs more children.

LOL How will preventing gay people from getting married result in more children being born ?

China will rescind this when they take over Taiwan

I’m not so sure. This could even shame them into moving forward on this issue. China actually isn’t as bad as some countries on the treatment of LGBT people.

@seadog,

hmmm, “intransigent”. Fair to say thats putting it mildly, given that gay people in those nations are stoned to death, thrown off buildings, beheaded or hanged from cranes just for being gay. Yep, gay marriage there is going to, er, take a while.

China will rescind this when they take over Taiwan.

Much work still to be done to instill tolerance, sense of fairness and understanding, in Taiwan, as elsewhere.

LGBTQAI+ victory Taiwan,

Taiwan has lost its moral compass. What a mistake. China is laughing.

@ Jimizo- yes, good for Taiwan.

China would take advantage of this law to invade Taiwan with Chinese immigrants who pretend to be gays.

I wonder how Japan will react.

Good on Taiwan!! May Japan be next!

I dont know why people are talking of Japan. Taiwan and Japan, seperate custom, history and culture. Japan is far, far older and has a culture thats lasted. Japanese are reluctant to change laws that have worked good. Furthermore, such a change is not productive since Japan needs more children.