China’s LGBT activists step up push for gay marriage after official rejects change
- Legislative Affairs Commission official dismissed public comments on legalising same-sex unions as ‘copied and pasted’
- Campaigner calls her remarks ‘an excuse’ and says more messages will be sent as lawmakers review draft civil code
China’s LGBT activists have stepped up their campaign to have same-sex unions legalised after a parliamentary official said the country “insisted on heterosexual marriage” only and dismissed public comments on the issue.
But on Monday, Huang Wei, an official with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said comments about legalising same-sex marriage had been sent in “an organised act”.
“The letters sent to us came in the same envelope, with the same content, and the online messages were the same – it’s all been copied and pasted,” she told news website Thepaper.cn.
Huang added that there would no change to the existing marriage law, “between a man and a woman”.
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LGBT activist Sun Wenlin said he was not satisfied with the parliamentary official’s justification for rejecting gay marriage.
