Tomorrow is going to be a big gay day for the island as homosexuals, bisexuals, transgenders and their supporters take to Taipei’s streets for the Fourth Taiwan Pride Festival to celebrate, campaign, raise awareness on a raft of LGBT issues, and, of course, have some fun.
The colorful procession will set off from Songshan Tobacco Factory, Taipei, (台北松山菸廠), and proceed along Zhongxiao East Road finishing at Huashan Cultural Park (華山文化園區). Dancing, music, performances, revelry and outlandish costumes are a staple of Taiwan’s Pride celebrations, but this year’s event has irked Christian, particularly Catholic, groups and several city councilors who have complained that Taipei City Government funding will be used for the performance of the public gay and lesbian wedding ceremonies scheduled to take place at Huashan Cultural Park as part of the event. The Catholic archbishop of Taipei Cheng Tsai-fa (鄭再發) even went so far as to say that homosexuality is against morality and that the same-sex unions seriously twist the meaning of marriage and can lead to the destruction of family life. The Chu Tai-shen (朱台深), the director-general of Taipei Christian Church Association (台北市基督教教會聯合會), said that granting gay citizens the right to marry and establish a family would make the city into a modern Sodom and Gomorrah.
The purpose of this ceremony is to raise awareness of and advocate LGBT rights such as the long-stalled legal recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships, the extension of adoption rights to include same-sex couples and the provision of welfare benefits for elderly LGBTs.
The objections regarding government funding are ill-founded, as the parade and marriage ceremonies are privately funded. The Taipei LGBT Festival (台北同玩節), which started on Sept. 17 and will continue on after the Taiwan Pride Festival, until Oct. 15, on the other hand, is partially funded by the city government.
Originally part of the LGBT Festival, organizers of the Taiwan Pride Festival ceased accepting sponsorship from the Taipei City Department of Civil Affairs (台北市政府民政局) in its second year because of the conditions the department attached to funding.
Taipei has hosted gay carnivals since 1999, but “the first gay parade [in 2003] kind of scared off officials. The sight of the scantily clad Waterboys [a group of homosexual beach enthusiasts] in swimming trunks strutting in the procession was alone enough to illicit complaints and stir controversy. It’s a good thing to distance the event from the public sector… . We have to use our own power to make ourselves heard,” said Wang Ping (王蘋), secretary-general of the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association in Taiwan (GSRAT, 台灣性別人權協會), the organizer of the Pride Parade.
Ashley Wu (巫緒樑), director of public affairs at the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association (TTHA, 同志諮詢熱線) and the executive secretary of Taiwan Pride Community (台灣同志遊行聯盟), the parade organizers, said accepting rules set by the city government would mean adhering to bureaucratic conservatism.
“Take the poster for this year’s LGBT festival for example. It is the first time that real gay people are featured on the poster and it really bothers the Department of Civil Affairs. Originally, we had another version showing them hugging each other — like one big family, but the officials simply said ‘no,’” said Wu, one of the three homosexuals pictured on the promotional poster.
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