Mickey Mouse In Japan Gay Weddings

May 162012
 


Tokyo (AFP) – Just days after US President Barack Obama came out in favour of gay marriage, another supporter of homosexual unions emerged in Japan: Mickey Mouse.

Despite their having no legal status, same sex couples are able to hold fairytale wedding ceremonies at hotels inside the popular Tokyo Disney Resort, including at the Cinderella Castle, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

News of the unions came to light when Koyuki Higashi, 27, enquired about marrying her female partner at the resort.
A member of staff who answered the call said there would be no problem with their marrying, provided they dressed “like a man and a woman”, Higashi wrote on her blog.

The staff member explained a same-sex wedding would create “repercussions” among visitors to the park if both brides were wearing wedding dresses or both grooms wore tuxedoes, the blog added.

However, a few days later, the resort operator got back in touch to say their initial response had been wrong and gay couples were free to mix and match their attire.

“We have never refused an application for a same-sex wedding at hotels here,” a spokeswoman at Milial Resort Hotels, a subsidiary of Tokyo Disney Resort, told AFP on Tuesday.

“One of our staff members was mistaken when explaining about outfits for a same-sex wedding,” she said. But she added gay and lesbian couples were not allowed to exchange marriage vows at the onsite chapel “because of Christian teaching”.

Higashi and her bride-to-be, identified on the blog only as Hiroko, have now visited Tokyo Disneyland, where they met Mickey Mouse to give him the good news.

“Mickey first looked surprised to hear that we are a ‘couple of girls’,” Higashi wrote. “But we said we were there to thank him because same-sex weddings can be held at the Disney Resort, and he celebrated with us.”

It is not known if Higashi and her partner will go ahead with a wedding at the Cinderella Castle, which costs 7.5 million yen ($95,000).

Homosexuality in Japan is widely accepted but not openly discussed. While gays and lesbians are unlikely to encounter outright hostility, there are few rights built into law for same sex couples and there is little public debate on gay marriage.

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Taiwan Slammed Over GLBT Rights

Apr 212012
 


Taipei – (CNA) An alliance of civic groups on Friday criticized Taiwan’s government for dodging the issue of recognizing civil partnerships of same-sex and heterosexual couples in the country’s first human rights report.

Chien Chih-chieh, a member of the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, said there has been little progress on gay people’s rights to form families in the past 26 years, despite the report’s call for improvement on the issue.

The report, published three years after Taiwan adopted two United Nations covenants on human rights, said improvement is needed in providing rights currently enjoyed by married couples, such as preferential tax rates, for same-sex couples and heterosexual couples in civil partnerships.

Chien said the government has long been ignoring gay people’s calls for the right to form families, citing the case of gay rights campaigner Chi Chia-wei, who asked for the right to marry his partner in 1986.

In recent years, several groups, including the Awakening Foundation and the Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church, have been pushing for the government’s recognition of same-sex marriages and the creation of a partnership status that better addresses nontraditional family forms, according to Chien.

Chien also slammed the government’s statement in the report that it does not rule out people on the basis of their sexual orientation when it comes to handing out benefits.

This is an outright lie, she said, explaining that people still face discrimination because some benefits are given away according to recognized relationship statuses, such as marriages.

Moreover, the government should look into the real situation faced by gay students instead of painting a rosy picture of school life, Chien said, criticizing the government for being complacent due to having passed gender equality laws.

Chien also urged the government to maintain its stance on introducing an education structure with a more open view of gender issues in order to establish school environments th

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Man Who Wears A Dress Condemns Gay Marriage

Mar 112012
 
Man Who Wears A Dress Condemns Gay Marriage

Rome – The virulently homophobic leader of the Roman Catholic church has repeated his condemnation of gay marriage. Pope Benedict XVI on Friday condemned gay marriage in a speech to bishops from the United States after Maryland last week became the eighth US state to legalize same-sex unions. “Sexual differences cannot be dismissed as irrelevant [...]

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