Rights activists and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday hailed the Legislative Yuan’s decision to officially begin the review of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, and urged their colleagues to support the bill.
“This is a good start, but also a test of Taiwan’s democracy because diversity and equality should be maintained and protected in a democratic society,” DPP Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) told a news conference after the legislature unanimously voted to refer amendments to the Civil Code to allow people of the same sex to be married to be further discussed by the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.
“The law should protect human rights, not become a source of discrimination, and everyone — regardless of their sexual orientation — should have the right to form a family,” she said.
She also urged Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers to join the “campaign for equal rights.”
No KMT lawmaker endorsed the bill.
“People who are opposed to same-sex marriage claim that the bill may encourage more people to become gay, but that is not true,” DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) said.
“No heterosexual person would suddenly turn into a homosexual just because same-sex marriage is legalized,” she said.
“Studies show that at least 10 percent of the population is gay, and they are entitled to rights granted to everyone by the Constitution. We should not pretend that they do not exist,” Yu said.
Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights president Victoria Hsu (許秀雯) said that a truly non-discriminatory society is one in which parents would no longer worry when they learn that their children are gay.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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