Once again,
opponents of same-sex marriage demonstrated that bigotry and intolerance, lies
and hatred, are the foundations of their beliefs
After several
weeks of buildup, the groups who oppose same sex-marriage in Taiwan descended
by the busload on Taipei today for a large protest as the government mulls
legal revisions that would make same-sex unions possible. Based on the language
that had been used to date, I expected bigotry — and they certainly delivered.
In fact, in terms of the magnitude of their intolerance, they showed their true
colors.
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| Opponents of same-sex marriage gather on Ketagalan |
According to the
organizers, as many as 350,000 people (though probably less) turned up for the event, which was
intended as a means to pressure the legislature not to amend Article 972 of the
Civil Code, which would open the door to same-sex marriage. Pink was the color
theme for the event. There was a variety of placards, many reading “Made in Mommy and Daddy” or “All Kids
Need Daddy and Mommy,” among others (I have one dad and three moms, and
they all love me; how about that, lady?). Apparently the organizers failed to
realize that pink was the very color used by the Nazis — the infamous “pink
triangle” — to identify homosexuals. (According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, the
Gestapo arrested as many as 100,000 men as homosexuals between 1933 and 1945.
About 50,000 men were sent to regular prison, while between 5,000 and 15,000 were
interned in concentration camps.) One of the protesters even turned up wearing a
complete Nazi uniform. “I don’t care if people don’t like it,” he said. “I will
fight back.” To be fair to the Nazis (I can’t believe I’m saying this!), I
would say that many of the haters who came out today were more a mix of Nazis
and the KKK.
Not all the
protesters who participated at the event were Nazis, of course, but a great many of them
were Christians. Even though organizers had called upon their followers to
avoid showing any sign that would identity them as members of the Church, the choice
of songs left little doubt about their affiliations.
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| Blocking efforts |
Interestingly,
in my more than seven years working as a journalist in Taiwan, this was the
first time that civilians approached me and told me I was not allowed to take
pictures. The site of the protest on Ketagalan Boulevard, they told us as we approached, was a “closed
area.” Only after I insisted that I was a journalist, and Ketty told them she
was an academic here to study social movements in Taiwan, were we allowed
to enter the site. All “security” staff wore special red armbands. There were
several hundreds of them, and they kept close tabs on whoever walked around, in a
manner that was reminiscent of, but that surpassed in its aggressiveness, the staff of
Citizen 1985 who got on my nerves when I tried to cover their protests. Sometimes they would ask people who approached whether they were “for” or
“against” same-sex marriage. Those who answered that they were for were barred
access. So much for dialogue...
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| Surrounded by intolerance |
This was also
one of the rare times when civilians arrogated upon themselves rights and
duties that are normally the remit of law-enforcement officers. Groups of
protesters repeatedly locked arms, encircled, and blocked people who carried
placards supporting gay marriage (see videos here and here and here). Not even the betel nut-chewing thugs hired by the German wind power firm InfraVest to protest their sites in Yuanli, Miaoli County, were this bad. On many occasions,
they also prevented me from walking around freely and left me little choice but
to collide with them. More than once I asked what right they had to prevent people from moving freely in a public space. I
never received an answer.
As the
anti-same-sex marriage group formed a tightening circle around members of the United Church
(which tolerates homosexuality), a woman berated Ketty for speaking English.
“We’re in China, and we speak Chinese here,” she said. Needless to say, if the
discriminatory and utterly unnecessary remarks against language weren’t sufficient to anger Ketty, the
reference to China did the trick.
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| Praying to 'heal' a young gay man? |
At one point,
two men locked arms around a young man who had fallen to the ground while they
were pursuing him. I got on my knees next to him and snapped pictures, as
several dozens of protesters with their pink placards and banners looked on.
They nearly suffocated the poor thing, so closely were they holding him. I
looked up and saw a group of Southeast Asian women praying out loud, their arms
extended towards the young man. I went over and asked them what they were
doing. “We are praying,” one of them said. This much I could tell. “Are you praying so that you will
heal him?” I asked, echoing a belief, held by many religious people, that
somehow homosexuality is a disease that can be healed. “Why are you asking?”
one of them replied with palpable contempt. I told them I was a journalist and that I was curious as
to why they were extending their arms in his direction while praying. “We’re just
praying,” she said, whereupon they made it clear that his questions — his
presence, in fact — were unwelcome. I had my answer: they were indeed trying to “heal” him.
For people who
claim to know about love, the mobilization today was one of pure hatred and
discrimination. Group dynamics were evidently at play and confirmed what I
have long suspected, that a large number of those who turn to religion do so out
of a need to follow, to be told how to think. Many of them are perfectly suited to meet
the needs of the authoritarian Church and follow it like sheep, even if this
leads them down the road of bigotry. Individually they are cowards, but as a
group, they impose their beliefs on others in a way that contradicts what the
Book tells them. Challenged with fact, they quickly run out of ideas and
run away.
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| Fighting back with love |
For example, ask
them to explain how allowing same-sex marriage would lead to bestiality, or how
preventing gay unions would eventually solve the problem (homosexuals would
disappear over time), and they don’t have a clue how to respond. They’ll have that
inevitable smug look on their face, and they will condescend, tell you that
they are enlightened by their religion, et cetera. But in the end, their minds
are hollow. (The repeated references to bestiality are especially worrying, as
this points to a process of dehumanization, whereby the “other” isn’t exactly
human and is therefore fair game for all kinds of discriminations. Somehow if
one’s partner is of the same sex, he or she is less than human; once we allow
that, the next step is presumably having intercourse with animals.)
Oh, and there was xenophobia, too. A huge sign blamed homosexuality on foreigners.
Many of the
protesters were children and hired helps who obviously didn’t have a clue about the
issue. Some children were doing their homework on the ground. One mother firmly
held up the arm of her little girl, who obviously didn’t want to be there, for
half an hour so that the homosexuals and their supporters who faced them could see the pink placard she
was holding. Organizers wanted a large turnout, and they got one. Still,
numbers alone don’t mean much unless they are put in a context. There were far,
far more people today who expressed their opposition to same-sex marriage, but
in the end, they remain the minority. Taiwan, a predominantly Buddhist country,
has about 500,000 Christians. Even if every single one of them opposed same-sex
marriage and showed up at the protest (not all religious persons are
homophobic, but most homophobes happen to be religious), they would still only
constitute 1/46th of the total population of about 23 million. That a relatively much
smaller number of people turned up to support gay marriage, or didn’t show up
altogether, is a sign that for them, this is a non issue and none of their
business. We should also add that the LGBT Pride parade held last month, which attracted approximately 65,000 people, had already advocated for the marriage rights of same-sex couples.
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| The face of pain |
Still, as the
several thousands of people poured onto the scene, I could not help but try to
imagine what it must feel like to be one of the small number of courageous homosexuals who were holding
their placards a few meters away, near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I would be devastated at
the idea that so many people would come out, with hatred in their hearts, to
deny my very existence, to resent me for something I was born with. No wonder some of them shed tears.
As I mingled
with the crowd, I thought about all the other protests I had been to in the
past 18 months, all the suffering that I had experienced. Where were those
people — people with supposed religious ideals, a conscience, love, compassion
— when the government was demolishing the homes of vulnerable individuals? When
people who had lost all hope were ending their lives? None of them were familiar faces (the only familiar faces today were on the side of the angels).
There are so many problems in
society, so much injustice that need remedying. And yet, the only cause that
prompted those people to mobilize today was one that seeks to deny other people the right to
form a family.
UPDATE: Lawyers have gotten involved, and the victims are planning to file civil lawsuits for slander, false imprisonment, and infringement on personal freedom. They are also considering criminal charges. (All photos by the author)
NEW! Chinese-language translations available here and here.
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