At least 119 same-sex couples have booked to register their marriages on May 24, the day the Council of Grand Justices set for same-sex marriages to be legalized: 83 in Taipei, 25 in Tainan and 11 in New Taipei City.
Household registration offices in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung and Tainan, Hsinchu city and county, Chiayi city and county, and Changhua, Kinmen and Lienchiang counties have begun accepting bookings for marriages on May 24.
Other cities and counties are set to start accepting bookings for any time after that date.
Statistics show that 3,989 same-sex couples have registered their partnerships at household registration offices in 18 cities and counties since 2015, mostly in the six special municipalities.
There are 885 couples registered in Taipei, but only one in Lienchiang County, the statistics showed.
Of the nation’s 22 cities and counties, only Yunlin, Hualien, Taitung and Penghu Counties have yet to introduce same-sex partnerships.
At present, same-sex partnership registrations allow partners to apply for family leave when their partners are ill and apply for passports on behalf of their partners, according to information posted on the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights Web site.
However, such partnerships provide fewer rights than marriage, and only through legalizing same-sex marriage will gay couples be given full rights, according to Teng Chu-yuan (鄧筑媛) from the Marriage Equality Coalition.
On May 24, 2017, the Council of Grand Justices ruled that the articles in the Civil Code that exclude same-sex couples from getting married were unconstitutional, and that the authorities must amend or enact laws in accordance with its Constitutional Interpretation No. 748 within two years of the day of the ruling.
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