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 group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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