Most Taiwanese support some form of legal protection for same-sex couples.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/12/04
By: Roy Ngerng
Credit: AP / Chiang Ying-ying
Roy Ngerng
After the Nov. 24 series of referendums, the international media reported that Taiwan’s push for same-sex marriage referendum had been defeated. Although this is disappointing, there was another piece of news that was not picked up as widely: a majority of Taiwanese voted in favor of providing legal protections to same-sex relationships, albeit not as “marriage.”
You see, in the referendum held two Saturdays ago, there were actually three referendum questions on same-sex marriage. They were:
- Question 10: Do you agree that Civil Code regulations (constitution) should restrict marriage to being between a man and a woman?
- Question 12: Do you agree to types of unions, other than those stated in the marriage regulations in the Civil Code, to protect the rights of same-sex couples who live together permanently?
- Question 14: Do you agree that the Civil Code marriage regulations should be used to guarantee the rights of same-sex couples to get married?
Questions 10 and 12 came from anti-marriage equality groups, while question 14 was proposed by pro-equality advocates.
The anti-equality groups had collected more than 677,972 signatures for their questions to be put on the ballot for the referendum, though only 565,676 (83 percent) were considered valid.
For the pro-equality groups, they managed to collect 330,000 signatures within the first 37 days after they started obtaining signatures, which they said was a record in itself in Taiwan, done in twice the speed as the anti-equality groups. Eventually, they collected474,777 signatures, of which 432,329 (91 percent) were considered valid. Their proposal was also approved at a later stage, which they said tipped the level-playing field in favor of the anti-equality groups, as they were allowed to begin campaigning earlier. [FULL STORY]