Same-sex couples pose for photos at a marriage registration event at Bangkok’s Paragon Shopping Mall on Thursday. Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP via Getty Images Hide Caption
toggle caption
Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP via Getty Images
SINGAPORE – Hundreds of same-sex couples tied the knot across Thailand on Thursday.
A luxury shopping mall in Bangkok hosted more than 150 same-sex weddings as members of the LGBTQ+ community celebrated the landmark ruling.
“We feel safer in our lives because we can become a family and be recognized as a couple in society,” Anticha Sangchai told NPR.
Sangchai was finally able to legalize his marriage to wife Vorawan Ramwan more than two years after their original wedding.
“This is special for me because this is Thailand’s history day,” Sanchai said.
Anchya Sanchai and Vorawan Ramwan were spotted signing their marriage certificate in Bangkok, Thailand on Thursday. adam hancock hides caption
toggle caption
adam hancock
Thailand’s parliament passed a historic same-sex marriage bill last June, joining Taiwan as the only countries in Asia to recognize marriage equality.
“Thailand is the perfect country to do it in,” said Tom Tan, owner of Gcircuit, organizer of Asia’s largest gay dance festival.
“Basically, I’m gay and I’m fine in Thailand,” Tan told NPR.
The new law means same-sex couples will be given the same legal recognition as heterosexual couples, including full financial, medical and legal rights.
“This is about having the legal right to build a life and protect what we build together,” said a Singaporean national planning to legalize his marriage to a Thai partner. Tan said.
The same-sex marriage bill was written into law by Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn in June last year, following decades of campaigning from LGBTQ+ activists. The fight for marriage equality in Thailand has long been hampered by the country’s tumultuous domestic politics, including a military coup in 2014.
Praipha Kyoka Shodrad, an LGBTQ+ activist and member of the Thai Parliament’s Marriage Equality Selection Committee, said:
Shodladd credits the wave of youth democracy protests in 2020 for reigniting the movement to recognize same-sex marriage.
“It influenced political parties who campaigned for LGBTQ+-related laws and policies because it became a breakthrough policy to gain popular votes from the younger generation.” Shodrad said.
Former Thai Prime Minister Sureta Thabisin (R) arrives with same-sex couples at a marriage registration event at Bangkok’s Paragon Shopping Mall on Thursday. Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption
Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images
The new bill also gives gay couples the right to adopt, but according to Tom Tan, there are still cultural prejudices that need to be overcome.
“The next step is for society to make sure that gay parents can have children and that children can have gay parents and not be ridiculed at school,” Tan said.
Tan says there may be a long way to go before other countries in Southeast Asia take similar steps to recognize marriage equality. In his home country of Singapore, same-sex marriage remains illegal, but in 2022 the government repealed a law criminalizing sex between men.
“I feel like things are moving, but obviously not as fast as Thailand,” Tan said. “I think it will take quite a while in Singapore.”
However, Tan and his partner OUI plan to officially recognize their marriage in Thailand later this year.
The pair are “very excited and thrilled,” Tan says.
