On Tuesday Taiwan’s legislature passed a bill that granted same-sex couples the right to jointly adopt a child, clearing one of the final hurdles in achieving full marriage equality.
In 2019 Taiwan became the first jurisdiction in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage but it stopped short of granting fully equal rights of adoption to same-sex couples. Previously, only heterosexual couples and single people were allowed to adopt children to whom they are not biologically related – creating a situation where if same-sex couples wanted to adopt a child, only one of them could register as the child’s legal parent, even if they both shared the burden of raising them.
Fan Yun, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party said “I am very excited that we granted joint adoption rights to same-sex couples today. Legally, we have finally returned same-sex couples to their children.” Before the legal change Tuesday, some same-sex couples had spent years challenging the discrimination in Taiwanese courts.
In a landmark ruling last January, a male couple from Kaohsiung City managed to successfully challenge the ban – when the court ruled that allowing joint adoption was in the best interest of their child. But the court also dismissed other similar cases and the law that limited their civil liberties remained on the statute books until it was amended Tuesday. #Queer Up The World View