Thai Gay Community Debate Over Right to Marry

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Thai Gay Community Debate Over Right to Marry

TAN NETWORK
UPDATE : 20 January 2012

The gay community in Thailand is known for its colorfulness and openness.

However the LGBT or the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community are in deep debate over obtaining the right to marriage.

Our reporter Chaowarat Yongjiranon has the story.
Anticha and Daranee have been in love for quite some time but like all gay couples, they are finding it hard to tie the knot.

Gay marriage is still illegal in Thailand, a country where society is quite open to people of various sexual orientations.

Anticha and Daranee say it is not only about benefiting financially, but the power to legally take care of their significant other.

This however is not the view of all homosexuals living in Thailand.

“The gay community here in Thailand is starkly different from other countries such as the United States where gay rights is a prominent issue.

Here, while some hardcore activists want some change, the majority of the community say that doing so is just asking for trouble.”

This is could be because there are such a vast variety of people with different sexual orientations in Thailand.

Committees consisting of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders continue to debate over how laws can properly cater to everyone.

In fact, some within the gay society believe it is better to stay quiet.

Professor Seri Wongmontha, a gay public figure in Thailand, says with all the options of careers opened to the gay community, asking for more rights may just be asking for trouble.

“If you make any movement, what’s going to happen is it will entail so many things.

You might be given certain rights, but at the same time some rights might be taken from you.”

TAN Network attempted to get a response from the Justice Ministry on the status of gay rights’ to marriage.

It unfortunately has said due to the complications of the law process, there has not been any progress on any such law and therefore the ministry had nothing to comment on it.

This response has not satisfied partners Anticha and Daranee who say giving people rights makes all the difference.

Marriage for Anticha and Daranee may not be possible in the near future, but this has not stopped their hope that things will change. Chaowarat Yongjiranon reporting for Thai ASEAN News Network.
 

[isanbirder]

I think all gays want the right, equal to that given by a traditional marriage.  However, some want to call it Civil Partnership (as I do)  and others want to call it Marriage.  American usages are irrelevant here.