An Economist Intelligence Unit’s Pride and Prejudice research says Taiwan’s ground-breaking legalisation of same-sex marriage in May 2019 reinforces the view that Asia is slowly adhering to the global trend.
But Taiwan’s newfound gay rights has got China saying it embraced gay ‘marriage’ long before Taiwan’s law which made Taipei furious.
The Taiwanese says China’s attempts to take credit for LGBT marriage win is ridiculous. It wants to be known as the first in Asia to pass same-sex marriage bill.
Yet for Beijing, this is not acceptable because Taiwan, the little China, could not have done it before them. South China Morning Post says no way Taiwan can make such a claim.
It says China has a history of gay marriages, practiced in many parts of China before the westerners colonial era made sexual and gender diversity a sin.
In old China the newspaper says, sex between men was common and it was official, particularly in the south. A younger man is treated as a son-in-law in the house of his husband’s parents.
Throughout the marriage, many of which lasted for 20 years, the elder man would be responsible for his younger husband’s upkeep but the marriage would typically dissolve after several years allowing the younger man to find a bride to marry and procreate.
Last week, Taiwan lashed out at China’s state media for attempting to take credit for the island’s historic decision to legalize same-sex marriage.
The people’s daily said on May 20 that Local lawmakers in Taiwan, ‘China’, have legalized same-sex marriage in a first for Asia, according to local media reports.
This prompted a Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to tweet the following:
WRONG! The bill was passed by our national parliament & will be signed by the president soon. Democratic #Taiwan is a country in itself & has nothing to do with authoritarian #China. @PDChina is a commie brainwasher & it sucks, retorted the MFA TAIWAN.