Proposed LGBT draft bill seeks MP support
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The rights of the LGBT community to engage in civil partnerships can be realised if the proposed draft is tabled for discussion in the House of Representatives, said Democrat MP Wiratana Kalayasiri, second vice-chairman of the House Standing Committee on
“Opponents can resist, but I think the draft bill will eventually be approved,” Wiratana said. He was speaking at the two-day international conference on human rights, organised by the Justice Ministry’s Rights and Liberties Protection Department.
The bill will be tabled for debate if 10,000 signatures or at least 20 MPs support the motion, and more than 5,000 signatures have already been gathered. However, Wiratana said the LGBT community also needed to lend its support to the bid in order for it to succeed.
Most MPs, he said, were around 45 or older and had conservative view about the bill.
“They initially looked down on me,” the Songkhla MP said, adding that his colleagues also started making nasty jokes about him.
“It’s a clash of generations and traditions, so we need all the help we can get.”
Bill far too weak: activist
LGBT activist Sattara Hattirat, coordinator at Anjaree, which promotes rights for people of different sexual orientations and gender identities, said the LGBT community was reluctant to support the draft bill as they had not been invited to participate in its drafting and believed it to be weak.
For instance, she said, the draft did not recognise the legal rights of an LGBT couple to adopt a child.
LGBT groups are drafting their own version of the bill and hope to have it ready by August, in time for the new parliamentary session.
‘Change in mindset needed’
Anjana Suvarnananda, executive director of Anjaree and moderator of the session on LGBT rights at the conference, said religion had to be separated from state policy.
She said Thailand had yet to overcome its “binary thinking” when it comes to sexual orientation, which is more diverse than just homosexual or heterosexual.
“There are more than two genders but we don’t want to recognise that,” she said, citing “inter-sex” as a separate and distinct sexual identity. “Sexuality is not fixed and static, but fluid,” she said, adding that the belief about sexuality being fixed at birth is a myth.
Bjorn R Lescher-Nuland, senior adviser to Norway’s LGBT Knowledge Centre, said there was a centre in Sweden and in the United Kingdom.
He said the Norwegian centre, which was set up in 2007, seeks to improve the lives of LGBT people at work and in society.
Norway has 64 measures to improve the quality of life among lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people and the perspective is implemented in all aspects of society. The centre also conducts research and looks into areas such as LGBT people with disabilities.
Lescher-Nuland said the Norwegian Foreign Ministry also considered the promotion of LGBT rights abroad as one of its main priorities.
