Protesters marched against New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止), as efforts to recall the legislator continued.
Setting off from Sijhih Railway Station, hundreds of protesters in white shirts slowed traffic as they wound their way to Huang’s local office, pausing there briefly before returning to the station while calling for Huang to step down.
“This is a democratic war,” Greater Taipei Stability Power Alliance chairman Sun Chi-cheng (孫繼正) said.
“Have voters ever given Huang the authority to push for homosexual marriage? He is ignoring public opinion,” alliance secretary-general, Yu Hsin-yi (游信義) said, adding that he needed to “listen and change his arrogant attitude.”
Yu is a former legislative candidate for the Faith and Hope League, a party opposing marriage equality that did not win seats in last year’s elections.
Sun said Huang brought “disorder” to society in debates over new labor rules and the service trade agreement with China.
There has been a movement since December last year to recall Huang over his support for marriage equality, shortly after the passage of amendments to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) that lowered recall thresholds.
Activists passed the first stage petition signature threshold to begin the recall process within the same month and now must collect another 25,119 signatures before a recall vote could be held.
“We are still collecting signatures and hope that today’s large event can help us break through,” Sun said, estimating that the organizers are about 10,000 signatures short of the next threshold.
At a separate news conference celebrating the first anniversary of the NPP’s Hsinchu headquarters, Huang said his support for marriage equality was “unshakeable.”
“Supporting marriage equality has always been my stance as a legal scholar, and I made an open promise on the issue during the legislative elections,” he said.
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