The China Post
Date: December 27, 2016
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan
TAIPEI, Taiwan — In a major step toward making Taiwan the first Asian country to legalize same-sex
marriage, an amendment to the Civil Code was approved by a legislative committee on Monday.
After three hours of deliberation, the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee approved an adjusted version of an amendment proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女).
The committee jettisoned the most disputed clause of the proposed amendment, which would have replaced “male and female parties” in the Civil Code’s marriage chapter with “two parties.”
In its place, the committee compromised by adding sentence to the original clause stipulating that “an agreement to marry shall be made by the male and female parties in their own cord; An agreement to marry in a same-sex marriage, shall be made by the two parties in their own cord.”
The committee also approved a clause guaranteeing an equal application of spousal and parental rights to both heterosexual and same-sex couples. [FULL STORY]