The parliament of Thailand has taken a historic step closer to marriage equality after it’s lower house passed a bill giving legal recognition to same sex marriage.
To fully become law, it still needs to be approved by the Senate and receive Royal Assent, which is expected to be a formality completed in the coming months. Upon becoming law, it will make Thailand the first country in South East Asia to recognise same-sex unions.
“This is the beginning of equality. It’s not a universal cure to every problem but it’s the first step towards equality,” Danuphorn Punnakanta, an MP and chairman of the lower house’s committee on marriage equality, told parliament while presenting a draft of the bill.
He went on to explain that the previous law was once newly introduced as a way of restricting the freedom of same-sex couples, rather than being something that had been around forever. “This law wants to return these rights to this group of people, not grant them the rights.”
The new law, which was passed by 400-15 votes, will describe marriage as a partnership between two individuals, instead of between a man and woman. And it will give LGBTQ+ couples equal rights to get marital tax savings, to inherit property, and to give medical treatment consent for partners who are incapacitated.
Thailand already has laws that ban discrimination over gender identity and sexual orientation and is, therefore, seen as one of Asia’s most LGBTQ+ friendly nations. Additionally, Thailand has an uncommonly large number of gender identities in its language and culture, with specific terms for 18 different gender descriptions.
It has also established itself as one of the premier destinations to undergo gender realignment surgery, due to the combination of expertise, low cost, and social acceptance of people being allowed to be the person that they want to be.
Campaigners have been pushing for the law change for many years, but despite widespread public support – a government survey in 2023 showed that 96.6 percent of those polled were in favour of the bill – it has taken until 2024 for it to be actually implemented.
Phisit Sirihirunchai, a 35-year-old openly gay police officer, said: “I’m glad and already excited that it is really going to happen. I am coming closer and closer to seeing my dreams come true.”
Phisit said he and his partner, who have been together for more than five years, have been planning to get married on the day the law comes into effect.
“I feel that equality has happened today. It’s a historic day for the Thai parliament that stands to fight for the rights of LGBTQI+,” said Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat, a gay MP from the opposition Move Forward party who has been campaigning for marriage equality for the past decade.
Many of the leading Thai political parties promised to recognise same-sex unions as part of their campaign before last year’s election. Prime Minister Sretta Thavisin has also been vocal in his support since taking office in September last year.
In December, the lower house passed four proposed bills to recognise same-sex marriage – all from different political parties. These were then combined into a single bill, which the lower house passed on Wednesday.
Thailand’s legal changes reflect the small, but growing trend of personal freedoms accruing across Asia. In 2019, Taiwan’s parliament became the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. Nepal registered its first same-sex union in November 2023, five months after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of it.
This was just one month after India’s top court said that whilst Indians should have the right to marry whoever they like, same-sex marriage was currently illegal according to the laws of the country – leaving it up to the government to legislate if it wanted to fix the discrepancy.
In Japan, campaigners are continuing to push the government to change the law after some district courts have ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Polls in Japan show public support for the change, but continued opposition from older, traditional ranks of the ruling party are still preventing the freedoms from being granted.
In Singapore, gay sex remained illegal until as recently as 2022, but same-sex marriage remains legally unattainable to its citizens, along with eating on the train, chewing gum, smoking cigarettes outside of the tiny designated areas, and criticising the government.
In South America, whilst almost every other country allows same-sex unions, Paraguay sits alongside only Bolivia and Venezuela in not allowing this personal freedom for its citizens and residents.
Whilst attitudes in rural, under-developed areas of Paraguay tend to be more conservative and discriminatory, the people of Asuncion are generally welcoming for all types of humans, regardless of gender, relationship status, or anything else.
