New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) yesterday proposed a draft same-sex marriage bill that he said focuses on protecting the rights and interests of children with same-sex parents.
Lim’s proposal, titled the “Draft Same-sex Marriage Equality Protection Act,” says that two individuals of the same sex may become engaged or marry following the regulations in the Civil Code that apply to heterosexual couples and that same-sex marriages would have the same legal effect as marriages defined in the Civil Code as unions between a man and a woman.
The draft proposal would also allow people in same-sex marriages to have a child through assisted reproduction with the approval of their partner.
The regulations prescribed in the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) would apply to couples in same-sex marriages, and children conceived by same-sex couples using assisted reproduction would be considered children born in wedlock, the proposal says.
Article 7 of Lim’s draft would recognize same-sex marriages between a Republic of China (ROC) citizen and a foreigner performed under the law of the country of citizenship of one party or the law of the nation in which the marriage was performed.
The proposal focuses not on the title, but on granting children born in same-sex marriages the same legal protection as other children born in wedlock, said Lim, who has begun collecting signatures for his proposal.
The bill is a counterproposal to a draft act unveiled by the Executive Yuan on Wednesday titled the “enforcement act of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748.”
The title, which refers to the Council of Grand Justices’ ruling on May 24, 2017, that the Civil Code’s definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional, does not include the word “marriage” — a topic of much debate between supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage.
Lin said that he was “impressed” by the person who thought of the title.
The NPP supports Lim’s proposal, NPP Legislator and caucus whip Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said yesterday.
Hsu said that he had signed a petition supporting Lim’s proposal and if it did not gather enough signatures to be considered, the NPP would consider proposing a competing same-sex marriage bill, using Lim’s version as the foundation.
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