New Bloom Magazine
Date: 05/26/2019
By: Lee Bo-Yi

PHOTO CREDIT: BRIAN HIOE

AS OF MAY 24TH, same-sex couples can get married in Taiwan. Legislation passed last week fulfills the 2017 ruling by Constitutional Court which states that prohibiting same-sex marriage is against the constitution. The passage of this law also shows that Taiwan shares the values of democracy, freedom, and human rights with other developed countries internationally, and significantly, that Taiwan is a different country than China, which has enforced regulations undermining the rights of its LGBT+ residents.

Taiwan is a democratic country in East Asia: it has already experienced three party alternations, which is impossible in today’s China, and in which no alternation of political parties has ever taken place. However, Taiwan’s democracy did not come without struggle. Over the past few decades, the Taiwanese people have protested against the authoritarian KMT. From the late 1940s to the 1990s, KMT not only enforced the martial law but also murdered what some think to be as high 140,000 people during the February 28 Massacre and the White Terror.

Thanks to the efforts made and even lives sacrificed by activists at that time, the Taiwanese people can now elect their presidents through a popular vote, which is fair, impartial and open, unlike some of the “elections” that take place in our hostile neighbour of China.    [FULL  STORY]