Thai politicians have passed four different bills on same-sex unions, in what appears to be a step towards Thailand becoming the second territory in Asia to legalise same-gender marriages.
Key points:
If the legislation passes, Thailand will become the second country in Asia to legalise same-sex unions
The move would strengthen Thailand’s image as a liberal holiday destination
Bangkok hosted the country’s first official pride parade earlier this month
Thailand has one of Asia’s most open and visible LGBTQ+ communities, adding to its image of tolerance and attraction as a liberal holiday destination for foreign tourists.
Earlier this month, thousands of members of Thailand’s LGBTQ+ community raised rainbow flags in the country’s first official parade celebrating pride month and supporting gender equality.
But activists say Thai laws and institutions are yet to reflect changing social attitudes, and still discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and same-sex couples.
The four draft laws approved on Wednesday each seek to provide same-sex partners with almost the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.
The cabinet endorsed two last week that would create a same-sex civil partnership law. Another civil partnership bill from the Democrat Party was also approved.
A more liberal equal marriage bill from the opposition Move Forward party also passed, despite efforts by government whips to vote it down. That draft seeks to replace gendered terms in existing laws and make marriage applicable to all people.
“This is a very good sign,” Chumaporn “Waddao” Taengkliang, of the Rainbow Coalition for Marriage Equality, said in reference to the approval of the bills.
“There should be the same standard for all genders, whether it’s a civil union or marriage.”
Activists call for legal amendments
The Constitutional Court last year ruled Thailand’s current marriage law, which only recognises heterosexual couples, was constitutional, but recommended legislation be expanded to ensure rights of other genders.
So far in Asia, only Taiwan has legalised same-sex unions.
Thai LGBTQ+ activists have criticised the two government-backed bills, arguing there is no need for a special law for same-sex couples, just amendments to make existing laws more inclusive.
The four bills will be deliberated by a 25-member committee, which will decide whether to send any of those, or a consolidated draft, to the house for two more readings, prior to senate then royal approval.
Thousands join Thailand first official pride parade.
In the same week that the Jan. 6 committee unveiled its findings on the attack against American democracy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others were more preoccupied with children attending a drag show in Dallas, Texas.
Republicans used the “parents know best” line to pass the “Don’t say gay” bill, which banned instructions in K-3 public school classrooms about sexual orientation and gender identity. Wouldn’t bringing their child to a drag show qualify as parents exercising that autonomy? Republicans, your hypocrisy is showing.
The thing is hypocrisy doesn’t bother them. That would require having a sense of shame. In fact, they love hypocrisy because it demonstrates power. They can say one thing and do another with zero consequences
The point of legislation such as we have seen from Floriduh is to provide some cover for christianity Inc. The best way to divert attention from religious people fucking children is for legislators to point fingers at the gay community and now drag queens. There is nothing novel about this as the same play was used in the early seventies by former beauty queen and current whore for christianity Inc, Anita Bryant.
An audio recording from a recent Moms for Liberty meeting in Cabot captures a group member musing about gunning down a school librarian over tension about what books are appropriate for young readers. The person who captured that audio at a June 9 meeting at Crossroads Cafe in Cabot asked to remain anonymous.
The person said keeping audio records of public meetings is simply their normal practice, but that they decided to share this one because it was disturbing. The person confirmed the voice in the recording belongs to Melissa “Missy” Bosch, the leader of an anti-mask effort in the Cabot School District last year.
In the audio obtained by Media Matters, the chapter’s head of communications and media, Melissa “Missy” Bosch, complained about librarians in the district, saying, “I’m telling you, if I was — any mental issues, they would all be plowed down with a freaking gun by now.”
She was made aware of the recorded audio and took to Facebook falsely claiming it was “illegally recorded” and “illegally spliced.” It wasn’t — Arkansas is a one-party consent state and Media Matters has reviewed the original recording in full.
Bosch also threatened legal action in her post, claiming to know “some fantastic lawyers,” and she said her comments came while she was talking about “making librarians who make 85k a year answer to parents when we ask how sexually explicit books got into the library.”
Media Matters notes that the lawyer Bosch hired for her anti-mask lawsuit also represented…wait for it…Josh Duggar.
In 1976 I was a scared teenager who timidly checked out a book at our local public library entitled “Society and the healthy homosexual” by George Weinberg. It changed my life for the better and I’ll be forever grateful to Mr. Weinberg and also grateful for the fact that I was even able to check that book out in the first place. It was a lifeline that saved me.
If Trump did nothing else, he certainly emboldened the sick, festering, hateful, violent crazies to expose who they really are…… It’s going to be hard if not impossible to put that genie back in the bottle.
A Wednesday morning fire in Baltimore that put three people in the hospital is being investigated as a possible hate crime, authorities told WJZ.
Based on a preliminary investigation, authorities believe someone set fire to at least one Pride flag outside a row home in the 300 block of E. 31st Street and the flames spread to the home and neighboring homes, a Baltimore Police spokesperson said.
Three victims were taken to Shock Trauma for treatment, he said. A 30-year-old woman and 57-year-old man were hospitalized in critical condition, and a 74-year-old man is in serious condition, the Baltimore City Fire Department told WJZ.
JFC, it feels like we’re back in the 80’s. Be vigilant, everyone. Know who is near you at all times. Know who is behind you at all times. Look out for yourselves and each other.
I find myself holding back from using public restrooms if there is someone already in there. The atmosphere has changed where there could be a real confrontation. It isn’t helping that Republican politicians here in Oklahoma are trying to out do each other in their anti-Trans hate.
This is what a failing democracy looks like. A majority support gay marriage, contraception, interracial marriage, and abortion rights, but are powerless to stop the removal of these rights.
Fundamentalist evangelical Christianity and its members are, sadly, a major major factor when it comes to the future of our nation. Ronald Reagan opened the doors of government to them in the early 80s and they poured in.
In the person of Donald Trump they found their perfect puppet. They control him and he controls the vast majority of Republicans today.
My thoughts exactly. Add to that increasing violence, especially political violence and violence directed at minorities, and society at large but especially authorities becoming increasingly tolerant of it. Kyle Rittenhouse being acquitted after murdering two people and then lauded as a celebrity is a harbinger of things to come.
In the mind of these people gay people not only shouldn’t exist but shouldn’t ever be seen or have rights. These assholes claim as it is paid for by tax payer money it shouldn’t have gay people represented, well what about all the tax paying gay people who want to see themselves represented in government. As a gay man why should I support museum art that depicts straight people kissing? The idea that only right-wing straight ideas have a right to be shown in society is infuriating as it is more than clear there are other people in society. That is the point of course the right-wing straight people want the rest of us ignored or publicly shamed. Damn it the SCOTUS has said it is more than OK that a religious organization taking taxpayer money gets to discriminate against gay people who pay those taxes. I am angry and sick of it. Hugs
LGBTQ equality advocates are demanding officials in Gaston County reverse their decision to remove a photo showing two men recently engaged, kissing, from a museum exhibit.
The photograph shows Justin Colasacco and his husband Bren Hipp kissing after Colasacco dropped to one knee and proposed in front of the crowd at the 2019 Charlotte Pride Festival & Parade. They married Oct. 4, 2020.
County Manager Kim Eagle told Gaston County Museum staff to have the photographer submit a replacement picture “that would be more considerate of differing viewpoints in the community.”
When I was in middle school (then Jr High) I was sitting with a member of the WWII generation who grimaced and said, “Yuck.” when a Black male kissed a Black female on TV.
They also made him remove a pic of a black woman being arrested for protesting a Confederate statue. And you can forget about contacting the County Manager or any of the commission members – the Gaston county’s website is devoid of all names and contact info.
Horry County Council members on Tuesday did something highly unusual. They voted to nix a not-legally-binding resolution after having voted to approve it last month. That resolution? To declare June as Pride Month.
It’s a decision that’s highlighted the long-simmering tensions between conservative Christians and the LGBTQ community.
The local LGBTQ advocacy group Grand Strand Pride was behind the resolution, organization leader Terry Livingston said, and local conservative pastors, like Rev. Mack Hutson [photo], led an effort to nix the resolution.
Read the full article. According to one council member, local Christians had planned to swarm council meetings to “raise hell” until the resolution was withdrawn.
“We’re going to start having more backlash. This is going to become more common instead of less common in my view of the future,” one LGBTQ advocate said. https://t.co/0sTaxM63dp
“It’s a decision that’s highlighted the long-simmering tensions between conservative Christians and the LGBTQ community.“
Actually, they want us to disappear from public view and die and are happy to use violence to make that happen, whereas all we’re doing is trying to live our lives, and we usually don’t care what crazy shit people believe as long as they leave us alone.
I swear to fucking god, mainstream media are both-sidesing this country toward fascism and genocide.
Folks, let’s remember that we have been dealing with shit like that and much worse for the entirety of our collective existence. Christianists stepped their game up with the orange juice whore some 45 years ago and found a winning ticket but ultimately lost. Remember those that came before us, the ones that lived through the raids, lost their jobs and in some cases ultimately died, smothered by christianity Inc. We have overcome so much more than what these pathetic clowns are throwing at us. Our strength lies in our ability to stretch, change, bend but not break.
I will be drinking champagne today as I am celebrating the anniversary of my 39th year.
Absolutely right, Nic! It is because of that history that Republicans country-wide are going back to that well instead of engaging in any real problem solving and forward thinking.
This. As discussed at length by Ta-Nehisi Coates in “The First White President”, Trump owes his entire political existence to racist backlash over Obama’s successful “[n-word] presidency”.
No telling where all this is headed. How far it will go.
If it goes full-hard right — if, for example, the religious right takes over all branches of government — we could be looking at armed civilian combat, a second American Civil War, on the streets of America.
the long-simmering tensions between conservative Christians and the LGBTQ community
Those tensions are a result of these people trying to takke away my rights, something I never tried to do to them. It’s not something I consider negotiable.
They can practice their religion and I don’t think that they should get forced to be changed or subject to conversion therapy or be told how to live their lives. I don’t care what they do in private or even if they want to practice their religion in public,, but they can’t force other people to live according to their beliefs. I haven’t asked them to live a gay lifestyle.
“I have been covering the wonderful month of Pride, for which I feel no pride for at all. I think it should be called shame month. It’s absolute debauchery.
“You’re seeing right now that adults are getting behind this narrative so they can have a woke t-shirt on and say, ‘I love my children. I allowed my child to pick their gender and pick their species.’
“And they feel proud of themselves because they can go and they can say this on Facebook that they are wonderful, accepting, and loving adults.
“When, in reality, they are underqualified to have children. They should have their children taken away from them because it’s child abuse.” – Daily Wire host Candace Owens, on her podcast.
Somebody recently posted an article about how well this anti-trans shit plays with GOP voters.
They’re eating this shit up.
As such, Republican Nazi politicians know they are on solid ground. Many may not actually believe a word of what they’re saying but, hey, if it helps get them elected, who cares about the human cost.
Republicans can’t exist without having some group to hate. Communists, liberals, Muslims, Jews, dark-skinned immigrants, gays, trans, Blacks, the list goes on and on. Unless you are a straight, white, conservative Christian you are the enemy! Hate is all they have.
They’re even playing one of their greatest hits by going after us gays for “grooming.” There’s just no minority group that doesn’t deserve a kicking in the eyes of Republicans.
Owens is such a vile POS! But it seems like the entire right-wing has gone into hysterics over the “danger” of having gay and trans people around children, even their own. This hateful rhetoric is exactly the same as the Nazi’s used against the Jews! “They are a danger to society and must be dealt with!” People are going to be killed because of this BS!
The editor of a conservative publication based in Mountville and a Berks County pastor are planning to hold an event next week exploring whether Pennsylvania should be an “explicitly Christian state.”
The event, at Tied House in Lititz on June 23, features Joel Saint, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society, and Chris Hume, managing editor of The Lancaster Patriot, and is billed as a discussion of “the wisdom of Pennsylvania’s original constitution.”
“Come hear about how Pennsylvania’s original Constitution called for an explicitly Christian state and what that looks like,” a Facebook ad for the event reads. “Can it be accomplished today? If so, should it be attempted?”
But the discussion, and the venue, are facing pushback and denunciations from some in the community who say Hume and Saint are promoting an extreme view of the role of Christianity in public life.
The collaboration by Hume and Saint on the discussion is not by chance.
Hume published a book last year, titled “Vote Christian: Biblical Principles for Voting,” in which he sought to make “the biblical case for why we should elect men who fear God to be civil magistrates.” In a promotional video for the book, he said, “God has instituted government, and he has instituted government to execute his wrath on Earth.”
The book received an endorsement from John Bingaman, an elder at Independence Reformed Bible Church in Morgantown, where Saint is the pastor.
Hume and Saint have been social media friends since at least 2017, and in February 2021 Saint wrote a review for another one of Hume’s books.
Dave Stoltzfus, who owns The Lancaster Patriot along with his wife, Jennifer, is a board member of Saint’s organization, the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society.
In Oct. 2020, Charles Bausman, the publisher of Russia Insider who hosted a white nationalist rally at his Lancaster Township property two months earlier, told LNP | LancasterOnline that he met the Stoltzfuses at conference put on by Saint’s organization at the Lancaster convention center and that he later put them in touch with Trey Garrison.
Before he was exposed as a white nationalist writer and podcaster, Garrison was the editor of The Lancaster Patriot. The Stoltzfuses announced they were delaying plans for The Patriot after Garrison’s identity was revealed and said they did not condone his views.
Saint, like Bausman, participated in protests outside Rep. Bryan Cutler’s Quarryville office and Peach Bottom home on Dec. 30, 2020, where protesters urged Cutler to illegally overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Hume did not respond to a call seeking comment. When reached by phone on Wednesday, Saint said, “I have no comment.”
Pa.’s constitution and Christian nationalism
The June 23 event at Tied House is advertised as a discussion about Pennsylvania’s original constitution and the role religion played during the early years of the commonwealth.
The oath of office in the original constitution required elected officials to pledge, “I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration.”
Eight of the thirteen other colonies had similar provisions, but these provisions were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court more than 50 years ago. Pennsylvania’s constitution was amended to remove the provision in 1968.
But Hume, Saint and others believe Christianity should be returned to the forefront of government and civic life, a view sometimes referred to as “Christian nationalism.”
Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, defines it as “a political ideology and cultural framework that merges American and Christian identities.”
She has called it the “single biggest threat” to religious freedom in America, and her organization leads a Christians Against Christian Nationalism project.
“This framework is dangerous both to American democracy and to Christianity,” she said. “Christian nationalism attacks the foundational idea that one’s belonging in the United States is not at all predicated on one’s religious affiliation, one’s theological beliefs or lack thereof.”
She pointed out that the U.S. Constitution makes no reference to Christianity, and in fact Article VI states “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
“This is directly relevant to the conversation at this event,” she said. “So when (the founders) were deciding if they wanted to set up a Christian nation, they said, ‘No, we cannot have religious tests for public office.’ ”
What concerns her, she said, is the effort to advance the narrative that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.
“I think this ideology attacks the foundational values of religious freedom for all in this country,” she said “Christian nationalism sends a signal that to belong in the United States you have to be Christian. That sentiment is un-American.”
Online backlash
Tied House is owned by St. Boniface Craft Brewing Co. of Ephrata. People angry about the June 23 event have posted multiple comments to the social media accounts of the restaurant and the brewery.
Several commenters objected to Hume’s views on homosexuality. Writing in The Patriot, Hume has criticized local communities for holding Pride Month events; he called homosexuality “evil” and equated Pride with “pagan posturing.”
One commenter, identified on Facebook as Matthew Kabik, wrote: “Hi, I’m a Jew – would I still be safe to come to your place, given that you host white nationalists and Christian nationalists at your venue?”
In a post to his own account, Ismail Smith-Wade-El, president of Lancaster City Council and the Democratic nominee for the 49th Legislative District, questioned why Tied House was “elevating racists, conspiracy theorists, and people who publish content with anti-LGBTQ slurs.”
Kevin Brown, owner of The Fridge in Lancaster, responded that he would be removing St. Boniface beers from his bar’s selection.
A post by the St. Boniface brewing company, which has since been deleted, in which they address the event.
On Wednesday, St. Boniface responded to the comments in a Facebook post that has since been removed. The unsigned message defended the decision to rent space at Tied House for the event and noted that many Christians live and work in Pennsylvania and Lancaster County.
Dain Shirey, a co-owner of Tied House, did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
On Thursday morning, Shirey said he could no longer comment on matters relating to Tied House or St. Boniface because as of 8 a.m. Tuesday he was no longer with the company, though he declined to say why he left.
Michael Price, co-owner with Shirey and Jon Northup, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday. An accurate number for Northup could not immediately be located.
“Our company believes in inclusivity for everyone, including Christians,” it said. “We reject all forms of white nationalism, racism, bigotry and homophobia.”
Duncan Hopkins, a Lancaster city resident who works for the progressive advocacy group Lancaster Stands Up, said he reached out to Tied House on social media to ask about the event.
Tied House, he noted, was quick to point out the “should” portion of the event’s title, implying it was meant to be an open debate.
“Asking a question sometimes gives the answer away,” he said. “These are two individuals (Hume and Saint) who have a vision for Lancaster and the rest of the country which does not include people who don’t look like them or think like them in places of power.”
The June 23 event, Hopkins said, “should not be construed as an open debate or forum. We should not want an ‘explicitly Christian state’ because that excludes so many people.”
This reporter’s work is funded by the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund. For more information, or to make a contribution, please visit lanc.news/supportlocaljournalism.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misspelled the co-owner’s name. It is Dain Shirey.
The event is being billed as an exploration of a portion of Pennsylvania's original constitution which required officeholders to affirm their belief in God. “Can it be accomplished today? If so, should it be attempted?" a Facebook ad for the event asks.
Pastor Mark Burns, a loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump and a Republican congressional candidate, said earlier this week that parents and teachers who communicate with children about LGBTQ issues pose a “national security threat” to the United States and added that those found guilty of “treason” should be executed. Coach D reacts.
Scottie's Playtime 