The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals recently found in favor of New York resident Edith Windsor in a case over federal government inheritance tax, ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the US Constitution’s equal protection clause.
Windsor had been in a relationship with her partner, Thea Spyer, for more than 40 years. The couple registered their marriage in Canada, where same-sex marriage is legally recognized, in 2007. In 1997, the federal government passed the DOMA, legislation that defines marriage as the legal union of a man and woman, ensuring the continued existence of the gulf between the rights enjoyed by same-sex couples and those between heterosexual couples. Spyer passed away in 2009, and when Windsor tried to gain access to her long-term partner’s inheritance, she was hit with an inheritance tax bill of US$363,053, more than she would have paid had their marriage been recognized in federal law.
Same-sex couples are also denied the same rights as “normal” couples regarding health insurance, tax credits and social welfare.
In Taiwan, a homosexual couple, after being turned away when trying to register their marriage in court in 2000, took the issue to the Council of Grand Justices, but the case was not heard because the Judicial Yuan said it did not qualify for appeal. The general consensus among the judiciary in Taiwan is that the law does not currently recognize same-sex marriages, and until it does, nothing will change. It is not up to the judiciary to make the law.
The US Circuit Court of Appeals took a strict position on the Windsor case because it recognized that homosexuals, as a group, have suffered discrimination for a long time. Therefore, the US government, as the defendant in this case, had to prove that its policies did not result in discrimination against anyone on the basis of sexual orientation. This is very different from past litigation in which the burden of proof was on the plaintiff to show that he or she had experienced discrimination.
Since 2008, there has been some debate on same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Nowadays, family structure is more heterogenous than ever, going far beyond the traditional, legally recognized concept of the nuclear family. We now have, for example, co-habiting heterosexual couples, homosexual partners in stable, long-term relationships who would like to get married but who are unable to do so legally, or good friends living together and looking out for each other. Even though the rights of people in a partnership are not necessarily compromised at the outset by the lack of legal recognition of their relationship, it is not hard to imagine that they will come up against problems as a result of this lack of recognition as they live their lives together.
The next step for the gay rights and gender equality movement is to push for new ways of defining partnerships, whether by incorporating same-sex marriages within the traditional marriage format or establishing a new system of partnerships with guaranteed rights. Three possible models could be same-sex marriage; a partnership system with no restrictions on gender or sexual orientation; or partnerships with more than two partners.
Last weekend, Taipei hosted a gay pride parade. The main theme was marriage reform, to reflect diversity in partnerships and to seek equal rights. Here we have civil groups taking steps to ask for government policy to be changed on issues they are concerned about, trying to open up dialogue with the rest of society. Will the various branches of government in Taiwan, the executive, judicial and legislative organs, listen?
Tsai Chi-hsun is secretary-general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
Translated by Paul Cooper
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS