Hundreds of LGBTQ couples in Thailand tied the knot on Thursday as the country’s landmark marriage equality law came into force. 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 Thursday in a mass ceremony at a shopping center in central Bangkok.
“We are so happy that Thai people here can now express their love in public and be accepted around the world,” Ruchaya Nillikan, 45, who was married in the ceremony, told CBS News’ sister network. BBC News. “It means a lot to us… We had to fight a lot to get today.”
One couple getting married said they waited 13 years to do so, while another said they waited 17 years.
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“Every love is the same, every love is the same inside,” Porsch Apiwatsayree told Sky News. He and his partner got engaged 11 years ago.
“Today I am particularly excited that we have a law to protect us both,” Chanatip Sirihirunchai told the BBC.
“Our next official plan is to change my papers, as I have listed him as my brother. Now I can officially call him my husband,” Pisit, Sirihirunchai’s new wife, told the British channel.
“I want Thailand to be a country that inspires our neighbors ASEAN to open the door to freedom for all humanity,” newly married Setthapas Na Thalang, 43, told the BBC.
Thailand has long been considered more tolerant of LGBTQ people than neighboring countries. In June last year, his Senate passed landmark marriage equality bill. The bill changed gender-specific terms in Thailand’s marriage laws to neutral terms, The Guardian newspaper reported.
Activists on Thursday hailed the new marriage law as a good first step, but said more reforms were needed to provide better protections for 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 always recognized (in terms of) a man as father and a woman as mother,” Yangyuenpradorn said, meaning that in a same-sex couple, one parents would have no legal relationship with their child.