You may have read about the High Court of Taiwan declaring the island's marriage laws, which limit marriage to a man and a woman, unconstitutional. Well, now there's huge pressure on the government of Thailand to re-introduce a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Via Joe.My.God.:
Call it the domino effect: Essentially the same thing happened in Europe after The Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage in 2000. (There's quite an interesting pattern there if one follows the timeline: It's all very incremental, but it goes all the way back to the 1970s, starting with the notorious Baker v. Nelson case, for which the Supreme Court denied certiorari "for want of a serious federal question," a rationale that has since received the ridicule it deserves.)
But what we see over again is that one polity takes the plunge (first banning SSM, and later adopting legal recognition), followed by others falling into line
It's also been incremental in terms of substance: first we have "civil unions" or some equivalent, and then when the sky doesn't fall, it becomes full marriage.
A lot of back and forth if you look a the timeline, but one thing sticks out: no country that has adopted marriage equality has back-tracked.
The Ministry of Justice has vowed to take action in favour of a petition demanding a stalled bill on gay rights be enacted. The Constitutional Court of Taiwan ruled in favour of same-sex marriage on May 24 and now calls to follow suit in Thailand may be gaining strength.
Pitikan Sithidej, director-general of the Rights and Liberties Protection Department at the Justice Ministry, said he received the petition to set the wheels in motion again on May 17 and will push for getting the bill approved at the earliest possible date.
The petition has been signed by nearly 60,000 people and was organised by the website Change.org. It backs same-sex marriage rights and other equal benefits for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and couples. The proposed law has been in a state of limbo since it was introduced in 2013.
Call it the domino effect: Essentially the same thing happened in Europe after The Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage in 2000. (There's quite an interesting pattern there if one follows the timeline: It's all very incremental, but it goes all the way back to the 1970s, starting with the notorious Baker v. Nelson case, for which the Supreme Court denied certiorari "for want of a serious federal question," a rationale that has since received the ridicule it deserves.)
But what we see over again is that one polity takes the plunge (first banning SSM, and later adopting legal recognition), followed by others falling into line
It's also been incremental in terms of substance: first we have "civil unions" or some equivalent, and then when the sky doesn't fall, it becomes full marriage.
A lot of back and forth if you look a the timeline, but one thing sticks out: no country that has adopted marriage equality has back-tracked.
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