Damnoen Saduak Floating Market with a history of hundreds of years in Thailand. File photo from China News Service Hong Kong Branch.
The new law has replaced the gender-specific terms in the marriage law with gender-neutral ones. For example, "man" and "woman" have been changed to "individual", and "husband" and "wife" to "spouse". It also grants same-sex married couples the same rights as heterosexual married couples, including tax benefits, inheritance of a partner's estate, adoption of children and so on. The legal age of marriage for same-sex couples is the same as that for heterosexual marriages, with the minimum age being 18 years old. Since the beginning of this year, Thailand's same-sex marriage legislation has achieved milestone progress. In March, the bill allowing and recognizing same-sex marriage was passed in the third reading by the House of Representatives. On June 18, the Senate also passed the "Marriage Equality Bill" in the third reading with 130 votes in favor, 4 votes against and 18 votes abstaining. In fact, since the implementation of the Gender Equality Law in September 2015 to protect the LGBT community from discrimination based on gender, due to changes in Thailand's political arena and other reasons, the process of same-sex marriage legislation has spanned nearly a decade. As early as July 2015, a survey conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration in Thai society showed that 88.72% of the respondents said they could accept colleagues who were gay; 79.92% said they didn't mind if someone in their family was gay; and 59.2% said they didn't oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage. According to the statistics in 2018, about 8% of Thailand's population, that is, 5 million people, were considered to be part of the LGBT community. The diverse tolerance of the LGBT community has also given birth to a unique Thai film and television culture and even the tourism economy. A paper published in the Journal of Chinese Language and Culture Studies in Thailand in 2021 pointed out that Thai films and TV shows maintain a tolerant attitude towards gay culture and kathoey culture (in Thailand, men who take female hormones from childhood for performance purposes, mostly due to livelihood pressures). For example, the Thai films "Love of Siam" (released in 2007) and "Yes or No" (released in 2010) "both describe the love between people of the same sex", and "the films do not stand on the moral high ground to judge whether this kind of love is right or wrong". The paper also pointed out that many Thai film and television works interpret "love" in a simple and natural way from the perspective of human nature culture. In 2023, Thai media quoted statistics as saying that before the COVID-19 pandemic, Thailand ranked first in Asia and fourth in the world in terms of the value obtained in the global LGBT tourist market. The Tourism Authority of Thailand even specially designed tourist routes for the LGBT community to attract them to travel and consume in Thailand. For example, honeymoon plans for same-sex couples to visit Thailand's famous scenic spots and historical sites have been designed, and gay bars, restaurants and other places in the city have also been recommended. Since these related projects have been implemented for more than 10 years, it undoubtedly means that they have a continuous promoting effect on Thailand's pillar industry - tourism. Reviewer: Robin, News Editorial Department Source: Huaxia Jingwei Network