Gay rights activists yesterday announced that they would form a voting bloc to support gay-friendly candidates in the upcoming legislative by-election in Taipei City’s Da-an District (大安).
“We’ve had six gay pride parades in Taipei in the past six years and more than 18,000 people took part in last year’s event — that’s where the voters are,” chief coordinator of last year’s gay pride parade, Lee Ming-chao (李明照), told a news conference.
“In the process of mobilizing the gay and lesbian community in Taipei, we estimated that around 10 percent of voters in Da-an District are gay — including myself. We can surely become a deciding minority if we stand together.”
He predicted that the turnout for the by-election would be lower than the 60.47 percent for last year’s legislative election.
“I’ve observed that Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] voters are not as interested in the by-election because they are not happy about how the party handled [former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator] Diane Lee’s (李慶安) dual citizenship case, so the turnout could be lower,” Lee Ming-chao said.
He said his group would come up with a list of recommended candidates and mobilize gay voters to support them.
“Recommendations will be made based on whether the candidate supports the six gay-friendly policy goals we have raised, and the candidate’s past record and performance in supporting gay rights,” Lee said.
The six policy goals are: supporting minority sexuality rights, supporting an anti-discrimination bill for all minority groups, supporting freedom of sexual expression, opposing police abuse of minority groups, supporting rights for gay partners and supporting inclusion of gay partners in the welfare system.
After asking all seven registered candidates to sign the six-policy agreement, four returned with a positive response — Wen Ping-yuan (溫炳原) of the Green Party Taiwan, Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) of the Democratic Progressive Party, Chiang Nai-shin (蔣乃辛) of the KMT and the non-partisan candidate Liu Yi-chun (劉義鈞).
Of the four, Wen and Chou attended yesterday’s press conference. While Chou reiterated that he would continue to fight for gay and lesbian rights if elected, Wen panned Chiang for not doing enough for the gay community during his seven terms as Taipei City councilor.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a