Media of and for the people
Since I arrived in Taipei on vacation a week ago, I have been reading with fascination the seemingly nonstop rhetoric insinuating that Taiwan’s media representatives are somehow conspiring against the government by reporting on events taking place in China and elsewhere.
As a former public relations professional (now public relations professor) responsible for ensuring that the public was provided with the facts regarding my organization, I was fully aware that not everyone shared our perceptions of our activities, but at least I was able, through the media, to communicate our story.
Today, with the proliferation of social media that make it more and more challenging for an organization to “control” the public conversation, it is somewhat naive for anyone at any level to demand that traditional media representatives refrain from reporting on activities and events. Information is readily available in numerous forms, and as a result, as I caution my students constantly: “If you do something wrong, I WILL find out!”
I also learned, both as a private sector and as a public sector (government) public relations representative, that open, honest and willing communication with the media assured that coverage of my organization would at least be balanced. I reminded my higher-ups that: “Not everyone is going to love us. But we have to talk to them. Otherwise, they will go to our ‘enemies’ for comment, and our image in the media will be one-sided.”
The media-consuming public, as well as the media representatives themselves, are intelligent, rational beings. Present them with the facts and let them draw their own conclusions. “They WILL find out!”
Kirk Hazlett
Tampa, Florida
Exploiting social housing
There is a Taiwanese man who is renting out rooms in a social housing apartment to other people. Currently, some people who are not Taiwanese are living there.
I do not think that a Taiwanese would live there, because they would not pay his high rent (they would know that it is too much).
The social housing should be for Taiwanese families. He is taking away a home from a Taiwanese family that needs it. He is also making money by charging foreigners high rent.
I think this is illegal, but even if it is not illegal, it is a good story to show how a greedy Taiwanese man can take away a home from a Taiwanese family. The Taiwan government built it for a Taiwanese family to live in, NOT for a greedy man to make money by ripping off foreigners!!!
It is one of the apartments at the Banqiao Fuzhou Social Housing at No. 38 Lequn Rd in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This is part of the Banqiao Fuzhou Social Housing complex at No. 180 Lequn Rd.
Orville Pohl
New Taipei City
Same-sex union law a sham
Taiwan’s new law enabling same-sex couples to form legal partnerships — same-sex marriage — is a step forward for advocates of gender equality.
However, the new law is actually a catch-22 for same-sex couples who get married in order to start a family. The new law states that same-sex couples can only adopt children of whom one of them is the biological parent.
There are two legal ways for people to bear children in Taiwan: heterosexual intercourse between married couples and assisted reproductive technology, which for most people is prohibitively expensive. Therefore, the only way for same-sex couples to have children is if one or both partners commit adultery, which is a crime in Taiwan, and the adultery law does apply to same-sex marriages.
Thus, theoretically, the government of Taiwan has passed a law that makes it possible to arrest a gay or lesbian person if he or she is married and engages in heterosexual activity. In reality, this new law is nothing but a simulation: It appears to give same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, but it actually makes them criminals if they try to exercise those rights by procreating.
For example, imagine a gay couple files to adopt a baby one of them has fathered a year after being married. They will be asked who the father is and how this man came by the child, at which point the man will be forced to confess to the crime of adultery, which makes him subject to arrest and imprisonment for up to a year.
The government is not likely to change the adultery law anytime soon, because only a few years ago the Ministry of Justice published a survey showing that 82.2 percent of respondents do not want the adultery law to be tinkered with. Furthermore, changing that law or making an exception to it for same-sex families would likely meet with strong, homophobic, community opposition.
In reality, marriage should not be a legal designation at all and the right to bear children should not be automatically granted to married heterosexuals, who may legally bear children, even children they did not plan on and do not want to have.
In short, the only reason to prevent same-sex couples from adopting children is Taiwanese society’s deeply rooted cultural disdain for homosexuality and the tacit homophobic belief that homosexual parents will raise homosexual children. The new same-sex marriage law is a fresh apple with a worm inside.
Xue Meng-ren
Taichung
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