LGBT Pride Parade calls for gay-friendly policies
Reported by Chiou Kuo-rong
Written by Lydia Ma
This year’s Taiwan LGBT Pride Parade took place on the eve of Reformation Day, or October 30, 2010, in downtown Taipei. Supporters waved small paper fans bearing a logo usually associated with vote-casting to highlight this year’s “Out & Vote” theme.
Organizers used the event to galvanize support and urge Taiwanese people to speak up in favor of implementing gay-friendly policies that’d give Taiwan’s LGBT citizens the same rights as their heterosexual compatriots.
The parade was followed by an evening outdoor gala by Ketagalan Boulevard featuring several speakers and renowned pop star Chang Hui-mei, better known as A-mei, opened the night with a few songs.
As in previous years, Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church led the march on that day. But this year, they were accompanied by Jireh in Love Fellowship (a fellowship for gay Christians in Taichung) and Promise Giver Christian Action Network.
In a statement prepared for this event, Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church called on all Christian churches to ponder on the essence of Reformation Day, which they’d be celebrating the following day. It urged Christians to ask themselves whether demonizing gays and lesbians was contrary to the Bible’s command for Christians to “set the burdened and battered free”. It also blasted rhetoric that blamed gays and lesbians as the reason God had allowed natural disasters to engulf the world.
