On Saturday, more than 65,000 lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders (LGBT) and their supporters proudly marched through downtown Taipei in the 2014 Taiwan LGBT Pride Parade (台灣同志遊行). Now in its 12th year, the Pride Parade has come a long way since it was first launched in 2003 with a relatively small group of nearly 1,000 people. Today, it is one of Asia’s largest LGBT pride parades, attracting people from across the globe.
Organized by the Taiwan LGBT Pride Community (台灣同志遊行聯盟), the annual event serves as a major platform for promoting awareness and solidarity.
With this year’s theme, Walk in Queers’ Shoes (擁抱性／別 ‧ 認同差異), the organizer called on everyone to embrace diversity. The push for the draft bill for “marriage equality” (婚姻平權草案) was a focus this year, as one of the main goals was to draw greater attention to the lack of legal rights and protections for same-sex couples. Such calls show that even after many years of hard work, discrimination and bullying against gays and lesbians still exists, and they continue to be deprived of basic rights.
Photo: Eddy Chang, Taipei Times
A KIND OF PROTEST
The draft bill for “marriage equality” that aims to amend the Civil Code has been repeatedly blocked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井) and Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟), who were both co-chairs of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee (司法及法制委員會). After Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), one of the initiators of the draft bill, was elected co-chair of the committee in the new legislative session, she held a public hearing on the draft bill on Oct. 16. But dozens of members of the Alliance of Religious Groups for the Love of Families Taiwan (護家盟) staged yet another protest outside the Legislative Yuan, shouting slogans such as “gay marriage is not a human right” while trying to cease any rational discussion.
Meanwhile, protesters flooded the DPP’s Taipei headquarters and Yu’s office with countless phone calls in an effort to paralyze their operations. DPP officials said that most of the callers were female, and they blasted the party for supporting legislation that “promotes homosexual views.”
ABSURD REMARKS
Invited by the KMT caucus, the alliance’s secretary-general Chang Shou-yi (張守一) said at the public hearing that “filial piety” is the most important value in society. He added that the tradition will collapse if Taiwan legalizes same-sex marriage.
“If the legislature passes the draft bill, it will create more gays and lesbians. Won’t it cause chaos in Taiwan?” Chang asked.
A student protester surnamed Lin (林) echoed Chang, stating that the purpose of a family is to produce babies — and that babies should not be deprived of their right of having a mother and a father.
Lawyer Lily Sun (孫立虹) of Antioch Law Firm (安提阿法律事務所), which is run by a group of Christian attorneys, framed the issue in a manner similar to the tainted cooking oil scandal. Sun said that too many supplements have been added to the issue. Consequently, the public can hardly see the problem clearly. She added that homosexuals’ fight for their rights will inevitably hurt the rights of others.
“The equality principle should be applied differently in different cases,” the lawyer said. “I really hope that people will stop labeling me and those who share my views as discriminatory, or be criticized as violating the human rights of homosexuals.”
Astoundingly, Jseng Pin-chieh (曾品傑), a professor at National Chung Cheng University, said that denying gay couples the right to marry doesn’t violate the Constitution, since only straight couples are biologically able to produce babies and homosexual families are harmful to children. As a member of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Gender Equity Education Committee, Jseng should have promoted gender equality, instead of abusing it. His discriminatory remarks are stunning, and the MOE should remove him from the committee immediately.
SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Well-known blogger Kris Chu (朱家安) later published an article rebutting the alliances arguments. The story, The alliance shocks Taiwan with seven bad reasons against homosexuality (護家盟震驚全台：反同的七個超爛理由), has caused much discussion online.
First, he writes, the alliance claims that homosexuals are inferior to heterosexuals because the former have a higher risk of drug use, suicidal ideation and self-harm. But studies show that many of these behaviors actually result from constant family or social pressure. Bearing this in mind, shouldn’t the alliance stop harassing homosexuals?
Second, the protesters claim that homosexuality has worsened the AIDS problem. However, being heterosexual does not make you immune from AIDS. As Chu wrote, don’t the protesters know that condoms are easily accessible?
Third, Jseng’s fails to back up with any kind of evidence the loony assertion that gay marriage isn’t in the public’s interest. Would our professor ban people with disabilities or low income and those who cannot produce children from getting married too, because such unions may not necessarily be in the public’s interest?
Fourth, protesters say that heterosexuals have no obligation to acknowledge the rights of homosexuals. But marriage equality is not an issue of who should listen to who. Instead, it is a matter of human rights. What kind of country will Taiwan become when the majority is able to bully the minority freely?
Fifth, Sun claims that any genders apart from male and female are gene mutations, adding that she has no intention to offend homosexuals by calling them mutants. But in fact, the Christian lawyer’s claim is a contradiction of scientific facts, and such a claim from a highly-educated intellectual is unbelievable.
Sixth, Chang says that chaos will result if anyone can indiscriminately chose their gender. He worries that men will be able to use a woman’s restroom if they identify themselves as female. The fact is, the draft bill does not involve gender identity at all, and the alliance’s secretary-general is simply blurring the facts.
Seventh, the alliance says that once the legal terms for “father” (父親) and “mother” (母親) are amended to “parents” (雙親) in the Civil Code, Taiwanese children will no longer address their parents as father and mother. That is utter nonsense. As Chu pointed out, the legal terms for “father” and “mother” in the law are “biological father” (生父) and “biological mother” (生母). Are Taiwanese children calling their parents “biological father” and “biological mother” now?
Not long ago, I saw a Korean film, Night Flight, with a gay friend. We were deeply touched by it. Made by gay director Leesong Hee-il, the movie vividly portrays a gay high school student’s struggles and bullying in school and in life. The Chinese title is translated as Ai, Bupa (愛，不怕), which means “not afraid to love.” Interestingly, this resembles the spirit of those LGBT people who are not afraid to fight for their basic rights such as the right to love freely. The movie is aired exclusively at Taipei’s Cinemark Cinema7 (喜滿客絕色影城), and I strongly recommend it to the protesters (and all policy-makers and school teachers). Hopefully, as we mark the 12th anniversary of the Pride Parade, the Taiwanese people can truly embrace diversity, and stop hatred and discrimination from today.
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