The Cabinet yesterday said that six more city or county governments have agreed to recognize household registrations by same-sex couples, with only five local governments not yet amending their policies, adding same-sex couples living in areas where the registration service is not available can register in other places.
Hsinchu, as well as Miaoli, Nantou, Pingtung, Kinmen and Lienchiang counties are to start offering household registration services for same-sex partnerships, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶) said.
The service is still not available in Keelung, as well as Hualien, Taitung, Yunlin and Penghu counties, but residents in those areas can register a same-sex partnership in other cities and counties, Chen said.
The registration data of a same-sex couple are only accessible by the local government with which they register their partnership, but measures are to be taken to ensure that the data can be accessed by all local governments and the central government to protect same-sex couples’ rights, Chen said.
Following the Council of Grand Justices’ landmark ruling on May 24 that a ban on same-sex marriage under the Civil Code is unconstitutional, and with measures to be taken to legalize same-sex union within two years, the Ministry of the Interior asked all local governments to recognize household registrations by same-sex couples, she said.
However, before same-sex marriage is legalized, the Cabinet has asked government agencies to relax restrictions on same-sex couples to entitle them to rights accorded to married couples, such as signing medical consent forms, asking for family care leave and visiting imprisoned partners.
There are 498 laws and regulations concerning rights and obligations derived from marriage and kinship, and a decision was made to delay the revision of those laws until same-sex marriage is legalized, Chen said.
However, the Cabinet would not decide on how to legalize such marriages — by amending the Civil Code, by establishing a special section of the Civil Code or by creating a special law — at this stage, Chen said.
Asked if the Cabinet would legalize same-sex marriage with a simple term change — such as replacing “husband and wife” with “both parties” in laws concerning marriage and kinship — Chen said a simple change of terms is “not what opposing sides [of the same-sex marriage issue] want,” because it would not “highlight different qualities of different marriage systems.”
“We hope to keep the heterosexual marriage system unchanged and add the same-sex marriage system,” she said.
“There have been concerns whether heterosexual marriage would disappear with our adjustments and whether same-sex and heterosexual marriage would be conjoined [into a single system]. That will not be the case. Same-sex and heterosexual marriage will coexist,” she said.
The Cabinet is next week to discuss how changes should be made to the Civil Code, including the minimum marriage age and marital prohibitions, Chen said.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS