A Brief About the Same-Sex Marriage Bill
Same-sex marriage bill passed with great majority in the lower house of Thai parliament. Thailand has become the first country in the Southeast Asia to recognise same- sex marriage and the third country in the Asian continent to recognise and legalise gay marriage. In the Asian continent, Taiwan and Nepal are the only countries that have recognised same-sex marriage. Now, Thailand is set to be the third one , joining the list. The Supreme Court of India, postponed the judgment in October.
The bill was passed with 400 votes in support and merely 10 votes in against the bill. The lower house of the Parliament passed the bill on March 27th,2024. Now,before the bill becomes a law, the bill will require to be passed from the Senate and thereafter, acceptance from the king. After 120 days of receiving the approval from the king, the legislation will come into effect. This legislation has been in the making in the Thai Parliament for over ten years now.
This legislation talks about making changes in the marriage law, by replacing the terms like “men” , “ women” , “husband” and “wife” with gender neutral terms. The legislation also talks about the adoption and inheritance rights to the LGBTQ community couples.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee,Danuphorn Punnakanta
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, Danuphorn Punnakanta,said that he is inviting everyone to create history. Punnakanta also said that they did this with the aim of creating more equality and reducing disparity amongst all the Thais.
The Struggle By the LGBTQ Community
Thailand has always had a very warm and friendly reputation in the entire LGBTQ community across different nations, it has laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The social activists and others who were involved in the protest for many years from the opposing opinions of the conservatives.
In the past , people have made tried to pursue to legalise same-sex marriage, however it didn’t get the backing and support from the public.
As mentioned in a news article of BBC, a survey was conducted which showed that 96.6 percent of people who participated in the poll, had voted in support of same-sex marriage.
The marriage laws , recognises heterosexual couples as legal couples. However, in 2020 a Constitutional Court in Thailand said that the legislation should also include rights of minorities.
The Parliament of Thailand, in December last year, had given consent and approved the first reading on the same-sex marriage bills. Also it had formed a committee and assigned the committee to make one draft from the four different drafts.
What does the bill offer?
As per the same-sex marriage bill , marriage will now be defined as a partnership of two individuals, unlike earlier which was described as a union between a man and woman.
Besides this, the bill promises to give LGBTQ+ community couples the right to inherit property, and the right to give consent for medical treatment for the partners who are not in the capacity to do so. ALso, it will provide the LGBTQ+ community couples with equal rights to enjoy marital tax savings as any other heterosexual couple does.
The same sex couples will have the right to adopt children. The committee suggested replacing the terms “father” and “mother” with parents. However, the lower house of the parliament did not agree with this suggestion.
