York Chow backs civil unions as answer to call for gay marriage law
Equal opportunities chief says civil unions between gay and lesbian couples could be 'feasible' alternative for conservative Hong Kong
The time is right for Hong Kong to contemplate civil unions as a "feasible" alternative to allowing gay and lesbian people to marry, the head of the Equal Opportunities Commission says.
Amid an international debate on gay marriage, Dr York Chow Yat-ngok says other governments consider it a "matter of human rights" to allow people to marry others of the same sex. But he says conservative influences in Hong Kong will make it difficult to change the law, which restricts marriage to a union between a man and a woman.
A civil union is a legal recognition of the partnership between a same-sex couple, which grants them the same rights in law as marriage in matters such as welfare benefits and inheritance. But Chow hopes that by not using the word marriage, this would be more acceptable to conservative Hongkongers.
Civil unions, or civil partnerships, were pioneered in Denmark in 1989 and are also in use in countries such as Australia, Germany and Ireland.
Similar arrangements have been introduced in other western countries, including France, and in England and Wales, which have since moved to allow gay marriage. In the United States the Supreme Court struck down the Defence of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
"To use 'marriage' for same-sex couples would be rather difficult to accept for Hongkongers, especially the conservative ones," Chow says.
