Gay couple sues for right to marry in China
- Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang have sued a civil affairs bureau for rejecting their attempt to register for marriage.
- The case, the first challenge to China’s ban on same-sex marriage, was set to take place last month, although postponements and China’s notoriously opaque media climate have impeded word of the case’s outcome.
- Following the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1997 and its official depathologization in 2001, a small but increasingly visible LGBT community has begun to emerge in China’s urban areas, despite attempts to crackdown on media visibility.
Read more:
“Couple’s Lawsuit Is First Test for Same-Sex Marriage in China” (The New York Times)
“In China, gays say life has changed much for the better” (The Christian Science Monitor)
“In a first, Chinese gay man sues for right to marry” (Reuters)
(Image Credit: Gilles Sabrie/The New York Times)
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