The same-sex marriage law and the nation’s first same-sex newlyweds show the world that Taiwan is a free, equal and diverse society in which different people live together in peace, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday.
Su made the remarks while inspecting the construction of a medical building at Pingtung County’s Hengchun Tourism Hospital.
He said that 526 same-sex couples registered for marriage on Friday, the day that the Enforcement Act of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748 (司法院釋字第748號解釋施行法) went into effect.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The entire society was joyful and sent well wishes to the newlyweds as they found happiness,” he said. “Even [US talk show host] Ellen DeGeneres, whose The Ellen DeGeneres Show, has about 70 million fans worldwide, praised [the legislation] in a post.”
DeGeneres on Friday said in a Twitter post: “Taiwan is now the first Asian country to allow marriage equality. Let’s celebrate every step in the right direction.”
Last week, British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt and US Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders each congratulated Taiwan on social media, he said.
The compliments meant a lot to Taiwan and the posts put a global spotlight on the nation, Su said, adding that the joy showed in other nations should encourage Taiwanese to feel that “even though we might be different, we all live in the same country, and we can live happily in this free and equal country that is Taiwan.”
According to Ministry of the Interior statistics, 185 of the couples that registered on Friday were gay couples, while 341 were lesbian couples.
New Taipei City registered the most couples at 117, followed by Taipei with 95 and Kaohsiung with 72, the statistics showed.
Fifteen couples were composed of a Taiwanese and a foreign national.
Asked yesterday about Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) claim that people at Cabinet-level meetings were discussing how to derail his administration, Su said the accusation was perplexing, as President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has put a lot of effort into bridging the development gap between the nation’s north and south.
The Cabinet last month gave the Kaohsiung City Government NT$400 million (US$12.69 million) to demolish an overpass to facilitate the municipality’s plan to move its railways underground, he said.
As Han and Kaohsiung’s two deputy mayors were absent when the subsidy was announced, maybe Han was unaware of it, Su said.
The central government earlier this month pledged to build Kaohsiung’s planned Ciaotou Science Park (橋頭科學園區) and approved NT$80 billion to build another line for the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit system, he said.
“I do not know the pressures that Han is under... It is okay for him not to know where Bhutan is or if Switzerland is a member of the UN, but he should know about the subsidies that the central government generously gives to Kaohsiung,” he said.
Han on Friday during a media interview said that Taiwan should follow the example of Switzerland, which “also has not joined the UN,” and aspire to become a permanently neutral nation so that Taiwan could become a haven where wealthy people could deposit their savings.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
TRANSPORT DISRUPTION: More than 100 ferry services were suspended due to rough seas and strong winds, and eight domestic flights were canceled, the ministry said Tropical Storm Wipha intensified slightly yesterday as it passed closest to Taiwan, dumping more than 200mm of rain in Hualien and Taitung counties, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 11am, Wipha was about 210km southwest of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and was moving west-northwest at 27km per hour (kph). The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 101kph and gusts reaching 126kph, with a 150km radius of strong winds, CWA data showed. Wipha’s outer rainbands began sweeping across Taiwan early yesterday, delivering steady rainfall in the east and scattered showers in other regions, forecasters said. More heavy rain was expected, especially in the eastern
RSS