Full marriage equality bill gets surprise nod from Thai Parliament

Authored by coconuts.co and submitted by jaigay

More refreshingly good news in Thailand today: Marriage equality has won the support of a majority of lawmakers.

On the heels of a bill that would establish civil unions, an opposition bill to extend full marriage equality sailed through its first reading in parliament with 210 votes in favor, 180 against, and 12 abstentions.

#MarriageEquality has surged atop Thai Twitter this afternoon.

“Long live equality!” wrote LGBTQ+ rights activist Nada Chaiyajit.

“It’s passed! I broke down in tears,” tweeted anwarin Sukkhapisit, the first openly transgender lawmaker and filmmaker of the once-banned film Insects in the Backyard. “Thank you for all your support. The voices of the people are so loud that the House of Representatives answered to them.”

“If you vote for the Marriage Equality Bill, you do not vote for a law to be passed, but you also show your acceptance of people with gender diversity, unconditionally,” said Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat, the Move Forward Party member who proposed the bill.

The bill had been kept on ice for months through a procedural tactic the ruling coalition used to block it from being taken up.

While today’s vote is no guarantee that it will be adopted, it is a good indicator of its support. Polling has found wide public support for the bill.

The bill now goes back to the committee level for amendments before returning for a vote.

It is vehemently opposed by some ultra-conservative lawmakers.

“We’re defying natural order,” said Soekarno Matha of the Prachachat Party. “Nature has created every living creature in pairs – male and female – and placed us humans as superior.”

The Constitutional Court late last year rejected a legal bid to extend marriage rights through the constitution on a similar antediluvian basis.

Today, the parliament also passed the Civil Partnership Bill in its first reading on a 229-166 vote with six abstentions. The government-backed bill would establish civil unions, not marriage. LGBTQ supporters decried it as formalizing discrimination by not extending the full set of rights afforded to heterosexual couples.

While the Civil Partnership Bill would grant couples the rights of inheritance, adoption, and asset management, it still fails to permit the couples’ rights to surrogacy nor recognize a spouse as the next of kin on medical records.

Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat said that his proposed Marriage Equality Bill, unlike the government-backed Civil Partnership Bill, will “truly stand” for all the people, regardless of their gender.

Rights group Fortify Rights issued a statement calling out the Civil Partnership Bill for codifying inequality. It called on the cabinet to adopt the Marriage Equality Bill instead.

“The current law in Thailand creates a hierarchy of citizens based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” said Amy Smith, executive director at Fortify Rights. “This marriage equality bill has the potential to eliminate the discrimination that exists between LGBTI+ couples and other couples and, in doing so, will bring Thailand’s laws in compliance with international standards as well as its constitution.”

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chr0nic_eg0mania on June 16th, 2022 at 18:20 UTC »

Vietnam and Philippines when? Also Thailand is about to be the 2nd country in Southeast Asia after Cambodia to recognize same sex marriage.

Sadly, Indonesia and Malaysia are getting worse and worse when it comes to LGBT equality. If you are LGBT, avoid these countries as much as possible.

ZincHead on June 16th, 2022 at 15:03 UTC »

Thailand has long been a country where the local population accepts and embraces LGBT people, so this is really long overdue. It's quite possibly the most LGBT friendly place in Asia and there are hundreds of thousands of people who live openly without fear. Of course, no where is perfect and prejudice exists, but if there was one place in Asia that was going to legalise all marriage unions, I'm not surprised it's Thailand.

Jealous-Elephant on June 16th, 2022 at 14:35 UTC »

Decriminalizing marijuana and now this?? Thailand on the up and up