Pro-gay church in Taiwan urges churches to stop discrimination at gay pride parade

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3114 Edition

October 31-November 6, 2011

Headline News

Pro-gay church in Taiwan urges churches to stop discrimination at gay pride 
parade

Reported by Chiou Kuo-rong

Written by Sandy Tsai

The 9th annual Taiwan Gay Pride Parade, held on October 29th, 2011, started 
from Ketagalan Boulevard with a huge rainbow flag held by the 30 people leading 
the parade. The theme of this year’s parade is “ LGBT Fight Back, 
Discrimination Get Out!” Just like last year, Tong-Kwang Light House 
Presbyterian Church actively participated in the parade and walked behind the 
rainbow flag with the troop.

Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church also actively took part in the 
preparation of the parade and was in charge of administrative affairs. To 
ensure that the flyers containing the idea of appealing for equal rights for 
gays was delivered to Ketagalan Boulevard on time, the church gathered dozens 
of church members the night before to pack them ahead of time. Da-wei Chen, the 
elder in charge of the evangelism department of the church, said that all the 
participants were fully devoted to this task. 

By taking part in this parade, the church not only hopes to fight for gay 
rights but also spread the idea that “God loves gays.” With that in mind, 
Tong-Kwang church also allotted special funds to design pink balloons in the 
shape of a heart inscribed with the words “Love God Belief Truth”. 

When church members held these balloons and walked in the front of the parade, 
the pink balloons really created an atmosphere of warmth; therefore, in return, 
people on the streets welcomed them by clapping and cheering.

This year, the different perspectives on gay issue between society and churches 
has made headline news several times. True Love Alliance, Christian association 
against homosexuality, successfully convinced some legislators to require the 
Ministry of Education to remove chapters regarding gay education from 
elementary and junior high school textbooks. Because of this incident, gay 
supporters responded that what the alliance had said about gays was totally 
twisted and also accused the alliance of discrimination against gays. As 
conflict and debate surged, a lot of public hearings were held and both sides 
sent people to defend their views at these hearings and in the media. 

A climactic turn ensued when associations that support equal rights for gays 
felt they were maligned by True Love Alliance’s efforts to twist gay education 
and gender equity education and decided to fight back. These associations 
gathered related evidence to sue the Alliance of using non-existent evidence to 
cloud the public’s judgment. This incident partly inspired this year’s theme.

In the past 2 years, Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church has seen the 
annual gay pride parade as an important mission. During the parade, a 
representative from the church nicknamed Abraham strongly emphasized that 
people should not push away gay peoples while spreading the idea of God loves 
people. Gays are also human; they need to be respected and encouraged, 
“Abraham” said to every participant. “Please remember, God the creator loves 
every one of us; and also remember, we are all here together, we are not 
alone.” 

On the other hand, the night before the parade, Hsin Tien Covenant Church 
senior pastor Chang Mao-song appealed to society oppose homosexual behavior. He 
mentioned that being gay is just like having sexual relations outside of 
marriage. He urged the government not to include multi-sex orientation sections 
in elementary school education textbooks; otherwise, it will be the prelude of 
legalizing relationships such as incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and adultery.

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