A conservative group yesterday crtiticized the Ministry of Education over a statement published on its Web site that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
The ministry urged schools and educators to prevent bullying based on gender or sexual orientation, calling on schools to strictly abide by the Gender Equity and Education Act (性別平等教育法) and fight discrimination.
The ministry’s statement drew heavy criticism from the Alliance of Religious Groups for the Love of Families Taiwan, which said that government support for gay issues could negatively affect character development among the nation’s younger generation.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Led by a coalition of Christian groups, the alliance has spearheaded a string of rallies and lobbying campaigns against legislative efforts to legalize same-sex marriage since 2013.
In a statement issued yesterday, the alliance cited statistics that showed a 50 percent rise in “homosexual behavior” among teens in the US state of Massachusetts after same-sex marriage was legalized in the state in 2004.
“We can thus derive that homosexual sexual behavior is like drug usage, being highly contagious, enticing children and teenagers to imitate, learn and attempt [such behavior]; with many teenagers being seduced by homosexuals after experiencing failures in heterosexual relationships,” the alliance said.
The alliance also decried the ministry for what they said was a “conflation between homosexuals and homosexual behavior,” saying that the alliance supports the basic rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual people, but refuses to condone “homosexual activities.”
“The alliance is caring and full of love toward homosexuals. We are not homophobic or anti-homosexual, neither do we detest homosexual people; we are rather against the advocacy, promotion or public performance or homosexual behavior,” the statement said.
“In regards to the homosexual problem, the fundamental attitude of the majority of people is disgust toward homosexual behavior and its proliferation, rather than fear or hatred toward the homosexuals themselves,” the alliance said, adding that the ministry’s caution against homophobia was misguided.
The alliance stated that the Gender Equality Education Act (性別平等教育法) was established to address tensions between male and female students and condemned the ministry for using the act to enact “partial policies that protect homosexuals.”
“Homosexuals are misguided in their partners for sexual behavior; the issue has no inherent connection with gender or gender equality,” the statement said, adding that the ministry had wrongly interpreted the act.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,