By Andrew Potts, Gay Star News
Vietnamese LGBTI activists are disappointed that the government has backed down on plans to legally recognize the property rights of same-sex couples with a bill to rewrite the country’s marriage laws amended at the last moment to exclude them.
A rainbow flag (L) displaying the words ‘Viet Pride’ is seen outside the roadside entrance of the German Cultural Goeth Institute, venue of the small but growing Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community event in Hanoi on August 4, 2012. (Photo: HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/GettyImages)
During a 27 May session of Vietnam’s National Assembly the Committee for Social Affairs revised the Draft Law on Marriage and Family to remove its Article 16 which would have provided some legal recognition of same-sex relationships for the first time.
It also placed language in the draft law that would not ban same-sex marriages but simply ignore them legally.
‘The State does not recognize marriage between same-sex people,’ the draft bill now states.
The move was decried by Vietnamese minority groups advocates the Institute for Studies of Society, Economics and Environment (iSEE) as going against the spirit of Vietnam’s constitution which states, ‘everyone is equal before the law. No one shall be discriminated against in political, civil, economic, cultural and social life.’
‘By not acknowledging the rights of citizens who are homosexuals, bisexuals or transgender, the Draft Law of Marriage and Family overlooks the efforts of millions of Vietnamese citizens, those who are working in all parts of the nation, in various occupations from national security to business production, from research and studying to humanity and charity, and like other Vietnamese citizens are devoted to the construction, development and protection of national prosperity,’ iSEE said in a statement.
Read the full story by Andrew Potts from Gay Star News.
