Taiwan: What Will Be up for Referendum in This Year’s Elections?

A TOTAL OF ten referendum questions are up for the vote in local elections at the end of this month, during which a nationwide referendum will also be held regarding these ten questions. Some confusion remains about how voters will tackle these questions, seeing as multiple sets of questions about the same issue will be present on the ballot.

Three questions were pushed for by the Coalition for the Happiness of Our Next Generation, an anti-gay marriage group primarily composed of Christian groups. One question asks whether marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman (你是否同意民法婚姻規定應限定在一男一女的結合?). The second question asks whether the Civil Code guarantees the right of long-term shared life of two people of the same gender in a form other than marriage (你是否同意以民法婚姻規定以外之其他形式來保障同性別二人經營永久共同生活的權益?). The third question asks whether elementary-school and middle-school education about homosexuality, as implementing the Gender Equity Education Act (你是否同意在國民教育階段內(國中及國小),教育部及各級學校不應對學生實施性別平等教育法施行細則所定之同志教育?).

Two questions were pushed for by the Marriage Equality Alliance, an alliance of LGBTQ advocacy groups pushing for marriage equality. The first question asks whether one agrees if the Civil Code guarantees the right of two people of the same gender to establish relations of marriage (您是否同意,以民法婚姻章保障同性別二人建立婚姻關係?). The second question asks whether one agrees that the Gender Equity Education Act should be implemented at all stages of national education in order to carry out education about emotional education, sexual education, and homosexuality (您是否同意,以「性別平等教育法」明定在國民教育各階段內實施性別平等教育,且內容應涵蓋情感教育、性教育、同志教育等課程?). Read more via New Bloom