Beginning April 1, same-sex pairs in Changhua County in Taiwan were allowed to register as gay couples. And it is not an April Fool’s Day joke because Changhua is the 8th Taiwan region to do that.
The move is seen as another step closer to legalization of gay and lesbian marriages in Taiwan, reported Global Times.
Members of the Taiwan LGBT community who are 20 years old and above could now list their partner as family if one of the couple is from that county. The registration would not be recorded on their ID cards and is not legally valid, but if either of the pair is in an emergency, the partner could sign consent forms.
The registration could also be used for the same-sex couple to apply for allowances from public welfare of police institutions, reported ETtoday. Changhua joins Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taoyuan and Taiching in offering the registration service to gay couples.
Geng Le, CEO of Blued, a Chinese dating app for gays, said that the administration of Taiwan’s new leader, Tsai Ing-wen, could make Taiwan the first Asian region to legalize gay unions. Although the mainland is also providing more rights to members of the LGBT community, Geng said China could learn from what Taiwan did by first registering same-sex couples before moving into marriage recognition.
Geng noted, “LGBT rights are neither an ideological nor a political issue in China. Misunderstanding or and discrimination against homosexuality is not caused by policies or laws, but by traditional mindsets and inadequate sex education.” She made the comment in reference to the acceptance in January by a court in Hunan Province of a lawsuit on same-sex marriage rights filed in December by a gay man whose gay marriage registration was rejected by a Changsa civil affairs bureau.
In July 2015, Pink New reported that Taiwan’s government planned to draft a same-sex partnership law a month after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision on gay marriages. Lo Ying-hsueh, the head of Taiwan’s judicial body, then said the proposed bill would be posted online to give the public a chance to vote on the bill freely.
In 2014, an online survey found that 68 percent of Taiwanese favor same-sex marriage. Taiwan’s acceptance of gays is reflected in this McDonald’s commercial which has received thumbs up from various groups.