Dozens of gay rights campaigners yesterday held a breakfast rally outside a church in Taipei to show their desire to communicate with Christian groups in a peaceful manner.
Waving rainbow flags and chanting slogans, the campaigners handed out free meals to participants and passersby in front of the Taipei Truth Lutheran Church in Daan District (大安).
Led by the Taiwan International Association for Gay Rights, the campaigners invited supporters to write down messages on three rainbow-colored billboards, which were later accepted by a representative of the church.
Photo: CNA
Gay rights advocate Chen Chih-ming (陳志明) said that the group wished to foster understanding among Christian groups about the gay community, following disputes between the two sides over the past few years.
The campaigners also presented a booklet that featured comments against same-sex marriage made by Christian clergy, titled Compilation of Quotes With Astounding Logic From Homophobic Pastors.
The booklet quoted Taipei Truth Lutheran Church pastor Yang Ning-ya (楊寧亞) as saying: “Promoting same-sex marriage is more frightening than an ‘explosion’ at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant,” in reference to the plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
Widespread misunderstandings about the gay community shows the importance of increasing communication, Chen said, adding that gay rights groups intend to adopt “the spirit of missionary work” in carrying out their campaign.
Gay and Lesbian Awakening Day convener Chang Ming-hsu (張明旭) said groups that oppose same-sex marriage — such as the Alliance of Religious Groups for the Love of Families — should not be considered representative of Taiwan’s Protestant or Catholic communities.
The groups said they failed to understand why Christian organizations in Taiwan remained opposed to marriage equality, since many European countries and US states with majority Christian populations have legalized same-sex marriage.
A proposal in the legislature to legalize same-sex marriage failed in December last year amid resistance from the Ministry of Justice and a variety of religious groups.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS