Amid the recent wave of rallies outside the Legislative Yuan staged by non-governmental organizations, Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) on Monday last week announced an opinion poll on attitudes toward same-sex marriage.
The telephone poll found that 46 percent of respondents supported same-sex marriage and that 45 percent were opposed.
Ignoring the issue of the validity of telephone interviews, this is a 50-50 situation, but You claimed that there was “zero consensus” on the issue of same-sex marriage and said that passing same-sex marriage legislation would be equivalent to “a magnitude 10 earthquake” and that “we are not ready yet.”
These statements are not an objective representation of public opinion toward same-sex marriage. Rather, they serve to intensify division and are clearly helping build momentum for homophobia and opposition to same-sex marriage.
It could also possibly imply that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is moving away from DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu’s (尤美女) proposal to amend the Civil Code toward DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming’s (柯建銘) proposal of special, discriminatory, legislation.
You’s poll was conducted by calling randomly selected telephone numbers, a sampling method whose representativeness is increasingly coming under criticism. More seriously, before asking whether respondents support same-sex marriage, they are told that “the legalization of same-sex marriage that is being actively promoted by the legislature has caused strong opposition among some people,” which could be seen as leading respondents toward giving a negative answer.
A better way would be to measure support for same-sex marriage by conducting another Taiwan Social Change Survey, which is conducted through face-to-face interviews using a strict household registration sample and a neutral questionnaire.
This survey included the same-sex marriage issue in 1991, 2012 and last year. With the exception of 1991, when support was a low 13 percent, support stood at 55 percent in 2012 and 59 percent last year.
This is almost a 6:4 support ratio, so saying that there is “zero consensus” ignores the fact that there is an almost 60 percent agreement in favor of same-sex marriage. The way You manipulated his presentation of the 50-50 situation is far from actual reality.
Leaving aside the issue of how rigorous You’s methodology was, what did his poll discover? Women, well-educated respondents and young people support gay marriage.
Young voters are a main reason behind the DPP’s growing support, but the inability to win over female voters remains a problem for the party. You’s talk about “zero consensus” is tantamount to pouring a bucket of cold water on these two groups.
If the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had cared about the needs of young voters and their calls for reform, it would not have become the minority party it is today.
If the DPP thinks it can manipulate and interpret opinion polls any which way it wants, it will find that the road that led the KMT to where it is today is not too far away.
What You has not told us is why men are more opposed to gay marriage.
In a heterosexual system which treats homosexuals as “unnatural” and “abnormal,” heterosexual men clearly have a two-fold advantage over heterosexual women and non-heterosexual men — they dominate gender relations and they occupy a privileged position between heterosexuality and homosexuality.
The former establishes a difference between men and women, in which men are respected and women are looked down upon, giving men the power to decide what men can do and what women cannot, while the latter, in addition to stigmatizing homosexuality, falls back on the acceptance and exhibition of privileged masculine dominance in order to belittle gay men for not being “real men.”
This is also one of the reasons male politicians, businesspeople and other privileged groups who enjoy a diverse heterosexual sex life with prostitutes, one night stands and extramarital affairs scoff at any issue to do with guaranteeing the human rights of LGBT people.
Finally, fighting for same-sex marriage rights does not imply asking for special privileges or for charity. It is a fight for the basic human right to be allowed to marry and form a family.
Rights must be protected. Equality implies eliminating differences between people by treating people in the same way regardless of their gender, class, ethnicity, age or sexual orientation.
Writing special legislation is segregation and it locks homosexuals into a small closet.
Special legislation guarantees that “those homosexuals” never will be mentioned together with “us heterosexuals,” and that only heterosexuals are worthy of being married.
Special legislation may seem to be an expedient way to avoid changing 100 articles or more in the Civil Code, but it is in fact nothing more than deep-rooted prejudice and discrimination against homosexuals.
Chen Mei-hua is an associate professor of sociology at National Sun Yat-sen University. Wu Chiu-yuan is a student in the College of Social Sciences at the university.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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