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.
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學：兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
‘NOT COLD ENOUGH’: Schools are disregarding Premier Su Tseng-chang’s instruction that students may wear out-of-uniform clothing to stay warm, an association said An investigative report revealed that 72.5 percent of the nation’s senior-high schools and 95.6 percent of junior-high schools punish students for wearing unapproved winter clothes in contravention of educational guidelines, lawmakers and student rights advocates said yesterday. Speaking at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan, the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy said there is an endemic disregard for the Ministry of Education’s regulations and that private schools are more likely to contravene ministry rules. The report is a compilation of 2,856 student reports about dress code reinforcement at 425 high schools and vocational high schools, the association said. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌)
DISSATISFACTION? If the referendums collect more than 700,000 signatures each, they would have gotten the most signatures in the shortest time, the party said The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) two referendum petitions — one on banning the importation of pork with traces of ractopamine and the other on holding referendums on the same day as national elections — had as of Thursday gathered 691,398 and 674,497 signatures respectively, the party said yesterday. If the petitions collect more than 700,000 signatures apiece, they would have garnered the most signatures in the shortest time since the Referendum Act (公民投票法) was amended in 2017, party officials said. The KMT proposed the “anti-ractopamine pork” or “food safety” referendum just days after President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement on Aug. 28 last
DECADES OF INFLUENCE: Over the past 20 years, China has made inroads with Aborigines, funding political campaigns and trips, a legislator said Lawmakers have called on the National Security Bureau to investigate claims of pervasive Chinese influence among Aboriginal communities. Legislators pointed to a surge in communist propaganda and Chinese-funded projects over the past few years, which they say are aimed at infiltrating and buying political influence among Aboriginal communities. “China has for decades carried out wide-ranging ‘united front’ tactics and propaganda campaigns targeting Aborigines,” said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ying (陳瑩), a member of the Puyuma community in Taitung County. “Now, they are influencing elections for local councilors and village chiefs, offering money for candidates to mount their campaigns, and to
RSS