Hundreds of LGBTQ couples married in Thailand on Thursday as the country's landmark marriage equality law came into effect. Thailand is the first country or region in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, and the third in Asia after Taiwan and Nepal.
More than 100 couples were married on Thursday in a huge ceremony at a mall in central Bangkok.
“We are so happy that the Thai people are here – now they can express their love in public and they can be accepted around the world,” said Ruchaya Nillikan, 45, who was married to the South -quote, to CBS News partner network BBC News. “That means the world to us…we had a lot to fight for today.”
One couple who were getting married said they had waited 13 years to do so, and another said they had been waiting 17 years.
Peerapon Boonyakiat / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty
“All love is the same, all love is the same inside,” Porsch Apiwatsayree told broadcaster Sky News. He and his partner got engaged 11 years ago.
“Today I am excited that we have the law to protect both of us,” Chanatip Sirihirunchai told the BBC.
“Our next official plan is to change my papers, because he is named as my brother. Now I can officially call him my husband,” Pisit, Sirihirunchai's new husband, told the British network.
“I want Thailand to be a country that encourages our neighbors there ASEAN to open the door to freedom for all mankind,” said Setthapas Na Thalang, 43, who is newly married to the BBC.
Thailand has long been seen as more accepting of LGBTQ people than neighboring countries. Last June, his assembly pass a special marriage equality bill. The bill changed gender-specific terms in Thailand's marriage laws to non-gendered ones, The Guardian newspaper reported.
On Thursday, activists hailed the new marriage law as a good first step, but said other reforms were needed to better protect LGBTQ couples. Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn, an activist with the group Fortify Rights, told The Guardian that changes were still needed to the country's civil and commercial codes.
“In the eyes of the law, biological parents are still recognized (in terms of) a man as the father and a woman as the mother,” Yangyuenpradorn said, meaning in a same-sex couple, one parent would not have legal ties to the theirs. child.
