More than half of Taiwanese are in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, but lean toward the promulgation of a new act to achieve the goal, according to a survey released yesterday by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which called for public hearings to be held to solicit more opinions.
The poll, conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday last week by Trend Survey and Research at the behest of the KMT, found that 51.7 percent of respondents supported amendments aimed at legalizing homosexual unions, compared with 43.3 percent who disapproved.
As for the issue of how to legalize same-sex marriage, 53.3 percent of those polled said they preferred promulgating a “civil partnership bill,” while 32.2 percent said they favored amending the Civil Code.
Photo: CNA
Only 0.4 percent of the respondents supported both approaches, with 4.9 percent liking neither, the survey showed.
Among the respondents 64.1 percent said they think that having a separate law would not discriminate against homosexuals; 25.5 percent said it would be a problem, while 63.3 percent said that legislative efforts should only be made after supplementary measures were put in place — given that amendments to the Civil Code could involve a wide range of legal rights — and 21.4 percent disagreed.
The poll asked respondents whether they could accept the removal of the terms “husband and wife,” “man and woman,” and “father and mother” from government documents, with 54 percent saying they did not approve and 39.6 percent saying it would be acceptable.
A majority said that marriage as it has been defined throughout history is conducive to the public interest, with 52.2 percent agreeing that procreation is central to the institution, which would exclude same-sex couples from marriage because they cannot bear children without a third party.
Forty percent said that the definition of marriage did hold procreation as a central tenet.
When it came to homosexual family members, 48.7 percent said they could not accept such a situation, while 46.1 percent said they could.
The survey collected 1,070 valid samples.
It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee Deputy Director Hu Wen-chi (胡文琦) said that as opponents of same-sex marriage have resorted to various channels to express their opinions, the issue requires a much more extensive discussion to reach a higher level of public consensus.
“The government should hold more public hearings to ensure that the issue is fully discussed,” Hu said, urging the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to refrain from playing “good cop, bad cop” to fool the public, an apparent reference to DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming’s (柯建銘) remarks last week that the DPP was leaning toward enacting a separate bill, which prompted DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) to say that “Ker’s personal view dos not represent that of the DPP as a whole.”
RULES IGNORED: CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang said that crew members who break the rules would be required to complete the full 14-day quarantine Three EVA Airways flight attendants were fired last month and this month after they failed to follow the government’s quarantine requirements. This was the first time that flight attendants have lost their jobs for quarantine failures. One flight attendant reportedly breached the quarantine mandate by going to school, visiting relatives and dining with friends, while lying to the company about her activities, EVA Air said. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) have established disease prevention measures for cabin crew members, such as monitoring their health and reporting their temperature daily, the company said. While on flight duty, crew
LOOPHOLES: The people behind biased media content produced by a Chinese network, likely without sending staff to Taiwan, remain anonymous, a source said Beijing’s latest attempt at psychological warfare through heavily biased online media is aimed at sowing discord and polarizing Taiwanese society, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s comment came in response to Chinese network Southeast Television, which late last month began broadcasting an online program featuring commentary by Taiwanese unification supporters that authorities suspect was filmed illegally in Taiwan. To circumvent cross-strait regulations, the broadcaster collaborated with online service provider Baidu to air the series titles Diverse Voices From the Taiwan Strait (台海百家說). Only Taiwanese are shown on camera, without revealing the host, interviewer or production team. In one video, political commentator and
A group of overseas Taiwanese in Norway are taking a case on their national identity to the European Court of Human Rights — with plans to file the case in the first half of next year — after Norway’s Supreme Court rejected their appeal to change their listed nationality from “China” to “Taiwan,” Joseph Liu, a Taiwanese lawyer living in Norway, told reporters on Monday. One of the initiators of the movement, “My Name, My Right,” Liu and his group plan to hire lawyers from the UK and France who know European law and have knowledge of Asia to represent them,
SUPPRESSION: Michael Tsai, a former defense minister, said that Beijing’s list of Taiwan independence advocates contravenes the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights The best way to respond to threats from China against Taiwan independence advocates is for the president to publicly reiterate Taiwan’s sovereignty, former minister of national defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) said on Sunday. Chinese media on Nov. 15 said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was compiling “a list of stubborn Taiwanese separatists and will severely punish them in accordance with [China’s] Anti-Secession Law and hold them accountable for their actions for the rest of their lives.” Chinese media subsequently accused Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) of being a “first-rate war criminal,” because of his policy on mask exports. “The vast majority
RSS