The Faith and Hope League, a new Christian-focused political party, yesterday said that its referendum petition drive for a national vote on “family protection” has garnered more than 150,000 signatures in less than 30 days, crossing the 100,000-signature threshold needed for a referendum proposal.
The petition asks that any amendment to the Civil Code on marriage, parents and children, custody and family, which concern the “husband-wife relationship, consanguinity and familial ethics,” not be passed without first being put to a national vote.
The petition is seen as a counterproposal to calls for changes to the wording of the Civil Code that could pave the way for recognition of same-sex marriages.
The league said the marriage and family system is “crucial to future generations’ welfare and kinship, while consanguinity is the keystone of a nation’s development.”
“While collecting petition signatures and interacting with the public, our staff found that most people have no idea that an amendment to the Civil Code regarding marriage being a union between one man and one woman has been discussed in the legislature, while some said that ‘diverse family formation’ is only about same-sex marriage and could not accept the idea after further understanding what three draft bills of ‘diverse family formation’ are about,” the group said.
The draft bills cover same-sex marriage, a partnership system and a non-biologically related family system.
The league said a referendum is the only chance for such significant issues to be openly discussed.
“While only same-sex marriage has been proposed among the three bills, the issues that have not been discussed also have support from parties and politicians,” it said.
“Over the past few years, social activists have often used words such as ‘diversity,’ ‘equality’ and ‘friendliness’ to disguise extremely radical ideas and positions, forming social pressure through online opinion, which has caused political parties and politicians to bow to them,” the party said.
“The government should have a comprehensive and concrete family policy, a policy that would make the family mainstream,” Faith and Hope League legislator-at-large candidate Fong Pei (馮珮) said.
“It is difficult to call a referendum in Taiwan, as the second-stage threshold requires 1 million signatures, but since we have received about 160,000 in a month, we believe we can cross the million threshold,” league co-chairwoman Joanna Lei (雷倩) said.
The petition drive created controversy earlier this month when some petition forms were distributed in elementary and high schools, with one parent saying that the forms were distributed to students to give to their parents.
A group from National Taichung Girls’ Senior High School said on Facebook that some parents were campaigning at the school on a sports day, saying that the ideas put forth in the petition would be good for children, who are being “brainwashed.”
A student newspaper criticized the distribution of the petition to students, saying that while free speech was a right in this nation, it was “outrageous when rights are used to batter the rights of others.”
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
RSS