Same-sex marriage is right thing to do at the right time

If you decide to marry and start a family, for instance, the legal recognition of your marital status and protection for your spouse and children's rights is conditional on your sexual orientation. That is wrong. Gay rights are already included under Taiwan's basic human rights principles, like stated in Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of China, which states: “all citizens of the R.O.C., irrespective of sex, religion, race, class, or party affiliation, shall be equal before the law.”

Yet, a Taiwanese gay couple recently gave up the fight for such constitutional rights after the ruling on a controversial case against Taipei City authorities' refusal to register their marriage was delayed for a second time by the Taipei High Administrative Court (臺北高等行政法院). In response to death threats and offensive comments on their Facebook page, Nelson Chen (陳敬學) and his partner Kao Chih-wei (高治瑋) said they withdrew their complaint and expressed their dismay over the country's judiciary system.

Although we understand their concerns, we still hope that Taiwan will follow in the footsteps of the Netherlands, South Africa, Argentina and France to give homosexuals the same stability, security and dignity brought by marriage to straight couples.

The case for same-sex marriage in Taiwan is not a hopeless case yet. If this lawsuit was filed 10 years ago, the judge would simply have turned down their request immediately, without even taking the specifics of the claim into consideration. The fact that the judges want to seek a constitutional interpretation shows that they have more open minds on the issue.

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