Bangkok — Thailand’s lower house passed a same-sex marriage bill Wednesday, as the country inches towards becoming the first Southeast Asian nation to recognize LGBTQ nuptials, a seismic legal shift lauded as a “fantastic first step” towards full gender parity.

The measure comfortably passed – 399 for to 10 against in the elected House of Representatives – some of whom waved rainbow flags during the landmark vote. To become law, it now has to be approved by the unelected upper chamber, the Senate, and then receive a royal assent. 

Once the law is passed, Thailand will join only Nepal and Taiwan in Asia in recognizing same-sex marriage.

Gay rights advocates say the progress after years of false starts shows Thailand’s changing cultural space and offers the country up as a legal sanctuary in Asia, where gay rights are virtually non-existent in many Muslim-majority and Communist-led nations.

“The repercussions are huge. My friends have spoken about feeling unshackled from their place as second-class citizens,” Paron Mead, 39, a Thai-British LGBTQ artist told VOA.

“We are thinking of the enormous number of queer people in Asia who have their eyes on Thailand as we navigate what this marriage bill leads to, both legally and culturally. This will undoubtedly help millions of queer people both in and out of Thailand feel a little safer.”

The government of Srettha Thavisin has prioritized the marriage equality bill seeing its potential to bring a ‘soft power’ win to Thailand, including potentially a boost in LGBTQ tourism.

But the bill is also a popular progressive win for his administration after it was criticized for allying with conservative hardliners who have blocked many other structural reforms to take power after an election last year.

Thailand has long had a reputation as a safe place for LGBTQ people to visit and live, despite the law failing to keep up shifting social attitudes towards gender.

The law was specifically amended within the Civil and Commercial Code, a piece of legislation that has proven notoriously hard to rewrite. 

“We’re making the impossible possible,” said Nada Chaiyajit, a transgender woman law lecturer and an advisor to the commission tasked with amending the Marriage Equality Law.

“We’ve come so far to demand rights for same sex couples, laying groundwork for the society including removing all the discriminatory terms towards women from the existing law, adding provisions to protect individuals.”

While the bill has practical outcomes such as inheritance, tax breaks and medical power of attorney for married LGBTQ couples, it says same sex couples who adopt children under the law cannot be called “parents” but instead must still use the gender specific terms “father” and “mother.”

“Passing the law is a fantastic first step,” said Aitarnik Chitwiset, who was an advisor to the panel which drafted the same sex marriage bill. “But it’s just a first step.”

Recognizing the lingering unease among some conservative parts of Thai society – including the country’s Muslim population – a spokesperson for the Pheu Thai party which leads the governing coalition, moved to reassure heterosexual couples will not be “deprived” of their legal rights.

Instead, it aims to it fix long standing injustice towards LGBTQ Thais, Danuporn Punnakan, of the Pheu Thai Party, who chairs the Same-sex Marriage Committee told parliament.

“I invite you all [members of parliament] to create a new chapter in Thai history together.”

After years of rejection by governments dominated by conservative elders, LGBTQ advocates say the law change will signal a new dawn for equality.

“We are in debt to the cultural leaders… who have fought for this reality,” Mead added.

“To empower anyone to love wholeheartedly is one of the simplest things we can do to shape a more peaceful world.”
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