The Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights on Tuesday called on the public to join civic groups in a parade in Taipei on Saturday to show their support for the speedy passage of a marriage equality bill.
Encouraged by a US Supreme Court ruling late last month that the US Constitution provides same-sex couples with the right to marry, an alliance of groups advocating equality of gender and sexual orientation decided hold a rally to demand that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators pass the proposed amendment to the Civil Code.
An alliance spokesman said that a draft of the amendment was sent to the Legislative Yuan in 2013 and passed its first reading last year, but has been shelved since then.
The draft needs to be included on the agenda of the next legislative session, or else its supporters will have to start from scratch with a new proposal after a new legislature is elected in January, he said.
As the KMT and the DPP have been hesitant to touch the marriage equality issue because of the controversy surrounding it, the two parties are likely to try to avoid further discussion and leave the bill frozen, the spokesman said.
The alliance plans to march past the headquarters of the two parties before rallying in front of the Legislative Yuan, where organizers will present a petition to legislators.
They also hope that legislators of both parties will explain their positions and the progress of the bill to the parade participants.
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
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PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
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