Gay rights activists yesterday announced that they would form a voting bloc to support gay-friendly candidates in the upcoming legislative by-election in Taipei City’s Da-an District (大安).
“We’ve had six gay pride parades in Taipei in the past six years and more than 18,000 people took part in last year’s event — that’s where the voters are,” chief coordinator of last year’s gay pride parade, Lee Ming-chao (李明照), told a news conference.
“In the process of mobilizing the gay and lesbian community in Taipei, we estimated that around 10 percent of voters in Da-an District are gay — including myself. We can surely become a deciding minority if we stand together.”
He predicted that the turnout for the by-election would be lower than the 60.47 percent for last year’s legislative election.
“I’ve observed that Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] voters are not as interested in the by-election because they are not happy about how the party handled [former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator] Diane Lee’s (李慶安) dual citizenship case, so the turnout could be lower,” Lee Ming-chao said.
He said his group would come up with a list of recommended candidates and mobilize gay voters to support them.
“Recommendations will be made based on whether the candidate supports the six gay-friendly policy goals we have raised, and the candidate’s past record and performance in supporting gay rights,” Lee said.
The six policy goals are: supporting minority sexuality rights, supporting an anti-discrimination bill for all minority groups, supporting freedom of sexual expression, opposing police abuse of minority groups, supporting rights for gay partners and supporting inclusion of gay partners in the welfare system.
After asking all seven registered candidates to sign the six-policy agreement, four returned with a positive response — Wen Ping-yuan (溫炳原) of the Green Party Taiwan, Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) of the Democratic Progressive Party, Chiang Nai-shin (蔣乃辛) of the KMT and the non-partisan candidate Liu Yi-chun (劉義鈞).
Of the four, Wen and Chou attended yesterday’s press conference. While Chou reiterated that he would continue to fight for gay and lesbian rights if elected, Wen panned Chiang for not doing enough for the gay community during his seven terms as Taipei City councilor.
A recently discovered supernova is the brightest and closest to Earth identified in the past decade, and can be observed with basic equipment, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said on Wednesday. The supernova has an absolute magnitude of 14.9 in luminosity and is in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) about 21 million light-years from Earth. It was discovered early on May 20 by Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki, who immediately reported the finding to the International Astronomical Union, the museum said. The supernova was designated SN 2023ixf following the astronomical naming conventions for supernovas, it added. The museum said that it observed
Tropical storm Guchol is moving in a northeasterly direction off the east coast of the Philippines and will not hit Taiwan, but will impact local weather starting on Friday, the Central Weather Bureau said Thursday. The storm would bring a low-pressure system northward toward the vicinity of Taiwan, forecaster Chao Hung (趙竑) said. Northern Taiwan will see intermittent rain showers in the morning, and thunderstorms in the afternoon on Friday, he said, adding that rain would be heavier on the east coast and in the central-southern mountainous areas. Rainfall would continue into Saturday, and would spread throughout Taiwan proper, he
Exiled Chinese democracy advocate Wang Dan (王丹) yesterday denied an accusation by former Taiwanese political worker Lee Yuan-chun (李援軍) that Wang had sexually harassed him in a hotel room in New York nine years ago. There was a huge gap between Lee’s accusation and his own understanding and memory, Wang wrote on Facebook, adding it was hard for him to respond further regarding a “unilateral description” made by someone else. Wang made the remarks after his initial response on Facebook was met with criticism, with people saying he did not directly address the allegation. Lee on Friday wrote on Facebook that he
A man was arrested in Hsinchu on Saturday on suspicion of filming women in the women’s washroom of a shopping mall in the city, local Chinese-language media reported on Thursday. The man was arrested at around noon on Saturday when a woman using a stall in the mall’s washroom noticed a cellphone being held above her from the neighboring stall, reports said. The woman ran out of the washroom and yelled to her husband to help her, after which the suspect – who was dressed as a woman – attempted to flee, but was subdued by other men until police