Green Party Taiwan and New Power Party (NPP) legislator at-large candidates on Wednesday joined LGBT rights groups in condemning the use of campaign banners they said were aimed at attracting votes by “selling discrimination and fear” against families with LGBT parents.
Jovi Wu (吳少喬), who raises her seven-year-old daughter with her same-sex partner, told a news conference in Taipei that the Stabilizing Force Party and some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidates have put up banners with messages such as: “I want to have grandchildren” and “Continue the family line.”
“Our child has never been bullied in school,” but the banners’ messages of "discrimination," "bullying" and "harm" against LGBT families have hurt her daughter “like blades,” she said.
“Every child has the right to grow up safely and healthily and to not suffer bullying, to not suffer discrimination,” she said, calling for anti-discrimination legislation.
Despite pressure from conservative forces, the NPP has continued to "fearlessly" support and defend marriage equality, NPP candidate Claire Wang (王婉諭) said.
“We do not want any children or any person to suffer discrimination or bullying, or even lose their lives,” she said.
Green Party Taiwan Deputy Secretary-General Rita Jhang (張竹芩), another candidate, said the party has proposed two LGBT-related policies: Opening assisted reproductive technology to all adults, regardless of their sexual orientation or marital status; and allowing legally registered same-sex partners to adopt children together.
“There is already too much divide in Taiwan’s society,” Green Party Taiwan candidate Teng Hui-wen (鄧惠文) said.
There are many reasons — including financial and psychological — for some people not marrying or giving birth, she said.
Her party condemns other parties that would, having “nothing better to push,” use the suppression of LGBT groups as a way to get votes, she said.
There needs to be better communication and understanding between family members of different generations, she said.
Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan chief coordinator Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔) asked whether anti-LGBT groups and non-LGBT friendly candidates "know how to campaign without discriminating, without smearing minorities, without spreading false information."
“We hope…this kind of malicious campaign culture can end with our generation,” she said.
Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights secretary-general Chien Chih-chieh (簡至潔) said she hardly ever attended weddings in the past, or cried at the ones she did go to, but since same-sex marriage was legalized last year she has been moved to tears several times.
It seems that the Stabilizing Force Party and some KMT candidates “imagine they can, through these elections, pull Taiwan’s society back to that patriarchal, feudal society,” she said.
“Many observers have said we are fighting a very serious reactionary and conservative force in these elections,” she said. “This force only allows for the existence of one kind of family and one kind of woman in Taiwan.”
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