LGBT activists in China are seeking to legalize same-sex marriage through a novel tactic: submitting opinions on a draft new civil code to the country’s legislature.
FILE - In this July 2, 2015, file photo, Teresa Xu, left, and Li Tingting, right, share a kiss as clerks take photographs in a beauty salon where the two were preparing for their wedding in Beijing.
“I realized if LGBT people don’t have the right to marry, we have no legal protections,” she said. “Others will also experience what I did — and be left with nothing.” The Marriage and Family section is among six draft regulations for which the legislature began seeking comments at the end of October. As of Thursday afternoon, the website showed that more than 200,000 suggestions had been submitted either online or by mail, the greatest number of any of the outstanding drafts. It was not clear what proportion of the suggestions pertained to same-sex marriage.
“There’s a near-zero chance the suggested changes will be accepted and implemented, but this campaign makes China’s LGBT community’s demands for equality harder to ignore,” said Darius Longarino, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center who has worked on legal reform programs promoting LGBT rights in China.
“China’s current marriage system is built on the basis of a man and a woman becoming husband and wife,” said Zang Tiewei, director of the commission’s research department, when asked whether same-sex marriage will be legalized.
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