The 15th annual Taipei lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Pride Parade yesterday drew about 123,000 participants, according to organizers’ estimates, hitting a new record since it was first held in 2003.
At about 1pm yesterday, paraders flooded toward the event’s main stage on Ketagalan Boulevard with 160 attending groups — including the American Institute in Taiwan and 12 groups from Japan and South Korea — divided into nine groups marching along three different routes.
The western route proceeded on Gongyuan Road (公園路), the northern on Zhongshan S Road (中山南路) and the southern on Xinyi Road (信義路).
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
After a two-hour parade from 2:30pm to 4:30pm, revelers returned to the boulevard for musical performances and group speeches until about 7:30pm.
Photo: EPA-EFE/David Chang
Event organizer Taiwan LGBT Pride Community used the event to promote sex education, saying students should have access to diversified education about different sexual orientations and gender differences.
When people are familiar with different sexual orientations across the spectrum, they will be less likely to discriminate against others who are different from themselves, Taiwan Gender Equity Education Association spokesperson Chuang Shu-ching (莊淑靜) said.
The Council of Grand Justices on May 24 announced its constitutional interpretation of the Civil Code, saying that it is unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to marry and called on lawmakers to amend the code within two years.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The two-year period can be painfully long for many same-sex couples, Green Party Taiwan member Jia Bo-kai (賈伯楷) said, adding that some of his friends have passed away before winning the right to be married.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is deferring marriage equality legislation because it wants to cater to both supporting and opposition camps, Jia said.
“The DPP does not even have the ability to ‘harvest’ the issue even though the council has paved the way,” he said.
Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu
Marriage Equality Platform spokesperson Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔) called on the government to speed up same-sex marriage legislation, adding that the equality of all citizens should come before what the opposition groups call “solidarity.”
Marta Bulawa, a 23-year-old Polish woman joining the parade for the first time with her European friends, said marriage means “security” for gay people.
Loren Letourneau, a 37-year-old Canadian with two children, said sexual orientation is not a choice, but a natural disposition, and he would teach his children to be safe no matter their sexual orientation.
At 4pm yesterday, Premier William Lai (賴清德) wrote on Facebook that the Executive Yuan would follow the constitutional interpretation to propose a bill about same-sex marriage soon.
Meanwhile, both the Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance (Happiness Alliance) and the Alliance of Taiwan Religious Groups for the Protection of the Family (Family Alliance) issued statements in response to the parade’s call for wider sex education.
Gay rights advocates often reduce sex education to merely sexual acts, while students should be protected from such an “improper sex education,” the Happiness Alliance said.
Same-sex marriage advocates have distorted school education by instilling wrong information into students, the Family Alliance said, adding that gay people should not be involved in sex education.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
RSS