Comments on: Vietnam lifts ban on same-sex marriages

Vietnam lifts ban on same-sex marriages

divabat — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 20:30:45 -0800

Vietnam becomes the first South-East Asian country to abolish a ban on same sex marriages.

By: kozad

kozad — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 20:45:36 -0800

Israel, Nepal, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, and Cyprus (excluding Northern Cyprus) are the most open to the LGBT community in Asia, with the Philippines ranked 9th as the friendliest country in the world to gay people despite having no legislation to recognize same-sex marriage or unions due to the predominant Catholic population. Japan, Israel, Taiwan and Nepal are the major players in legislation. (Today's Wikipedia) So: Vietnam: unexpected, according to conventional wisdom. I am ignorant of the particular political currents of this issue in this region, although Thailand seems to be an outlier in this part of the world. They have a tradition of "ladyboys" or "Kathoey" in their culture, although I'm guessing this cultural category does not infiltrate their Buddhist/governmental hierarchy.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 20:46:13 -0800

Congratulations to Vietnam!

By: scaryblackdeath

scaryblackdeath — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 20:46:48 -0800

Hooray!

By: PROD_TPSL

PROD_TPSL — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 20:51:39 -0800

\o/

By: hippybear

hippybear — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 20:56:37 -0800

Yay!!

By: wanderingmind

wanderingmind — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 21:04:16 -0800

Xin chúc mừng! (at least, if Google Translate is accurate)

By: Joe in Australia

Joe in Australia — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 21:38:50 -0800

Israel, Nepal, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, and Cyprus (excluding Northern Cyprus) are the most open to the LGBT community in Asia [...] Only a few of those countries have significant historical or cultural affinities with each other. Wikipedia's ranking would be more informative if it ranked LGBT rights in countries that have a McDonalds franchise, or compete in international cricket matches.

By: Mezentian

Mezentian — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 22:00:34 -0800

I'm just surprised to find Cyprus is included in Asia, and not Europe.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 22:23:58 -0800

The OP article also says that, while the specific ban (and its related fines) dating from 2013 has been lifted, there is still no official recognition of same-sex marriages by the government or the legal system. Same-sex marriages can now take place, though the government does not recognise them or provide legal protection in cases of disputes

By: dancestoblue

dancestoblue — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 22:31:47 -0800

... though the government does not recognise them or provide legal protection in cases of disputes ... posted by Bwithh at 12:23 AM It's still a huge step in the right direction. Hurray Vietnam !!!

By: dancestoblue

dancestoblue — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 22:41:28 -0800

... although Thailand seems to be an outlier in this part of the world. They have a tradition of "ladyboys" or "Kathoey" in their culture, although I'm guessing this cultural category does not infiltrate their Buddhist/governmental hierarchy. .... posted by kozad at 10:45 PM on January 17 Probably true, but 5000 years of Buddhism seems to give Thailand very much of a "Live and let live." attitude -- you may not get infiltrated into governmental hierarchies but you're not going to be harassed for living your life as you want or need to live it.

By: Panjandrum

Panjandrum — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 23:48:49 -0800

5000 years of Buddhism Uh... typo, I assume? And despite its touchy-feely reputation in the West, Buddhism absolutely has a fundamentalist streak, particularly with the monastics in Thailand. I would be 100% unsurprised if the opponents to LGBT rights in Thailand did so using Buddhist justifications.

By: Mezentian

Mezentian — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:04:01 -0800

Buddhism does have an image of being a religion of peace and hippy stuff, but it does have that deep hardline side. I think there have been recent riots in Myanmar and southern Thailand in recent years (in Myanmar protesting against muslims and Rohingya) which the BBC looked at. It's not hard to imagine it being repressive elsewhere.

By: the cydonian

the cydonian — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:21:18 -0800

Thailand regularly hosts Miss Tiffany's Universe and yes, everyone thinks of ladyboys when they speak of Phuket and Pattaya, but it is an utter fallacy to suggest that Thai society is accepting of transgendered individuals. The moment they go beyond Soi Bang La or Soi Cowboy proclivities, they are discriminated against, in corporate offices, in governmental jobs where they are required to wear uniforms of their birth gender, and not assigned gender. The list is endless; the Wikipedia page has a good summary. Same sex marriages are still not allowed; people can and have run into trouble here. I do realise the West somehow thinks Buddhist societies are somehow pacifist and all-accepting, but that rarely is the case. The Khmer Rouge came about in heavily Buddhist Cambodia, where the population dropped by two million or so. No South East Asian nation comes off looking good, but for their systematic enslavement and ghettoization, Thailand and Myanmar are actually two of the worst offenders of human rights abuse, right up there with regular stalwarts like Saudi Arabia. The dominant religion has absolutely nothing to do with how a society treats people among its midst. Has never been the case, not even in South East Asia.

By: tivalasvegas

tivalasvegas — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 02:06:58 -0800

It is book report time. "Asia is a place. It is big. Asia has people. People in Asia do sex in different ways. People in Asia also do gender in different ways. In conclusion, Asia is an arbitrarily-demarcated geographical area of contrasts." But to un-digress, congratulations Vietnam! Your leaders appear to be less of tools on this particular issue than the leaders of my supposedly super-modern country's national legislature.

By: elgilito

elgilito — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 02:12:50 -0800

Note that the dominant religion in Vietnam is not Buddhism but folk religion, which works rather differently than organized religions. Religions and traditions in Vietnam tend to be extremely syncretic with a lot of local idiosyncrasies (i.e. a 3-day Ramadan for Muslims...) that are very confusing for those of us brought up in cultures where there's a dominant and well-organized religion. In fact, Vietnamese traditions are not always that clear to the Vietnamese themselves... As the Wikipedia page notes, the traditional Vietnamese wedding is actually an "extensive set of ceremonies". Some of those ceremonies may or may not be actually required, they may or may not include infusions of other cultural traditions, and they may or may not be flexible. This doesn't mean that Vietnamese culture is 100% LGBT-friendly, notably due to the pressure of Confucianism, but it explains why cultural tolerance for same-sex weddings in Vietnam does not require the kind of struggle we've seen in cultures with a strong centralized and organized religion.

By: sonascope

sonascope — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 04:45:56 -0800

Cảm ơn bạn, Việt Nam! I worked the night shift in a medium-sized service bureau that was entirely staffed by Vietnamese folks and it was a lovely crash course in the culture. I made the effort to crash the language barrier and went from eating alone in the corner of the lunchroom to being one of the people at the big table with the giant lazy susan, ever honing my pidgin Vietnamese that only my coworkers could understand because of my dreadful pronunciation and listening to amazing stories from all sorts of people who'd been on both sides in the war and learning more about Vietnam than I'd have ever imagined. I was a curiosity to my friends in an office where most of the higher-ups were blunt object middle-managers who made their big commissions off the labor of the Vietnamese crew but never bothered even to learn to pronounce names, calling Tran Nguyen "Chain New-jen," but the older women all lived up to the standard honorific one uses to address one's elders, "cô," (aunt) and doted on me in a way that was just...a delight in an otherwise dull job. "We have gay in Vietnam," too, my most doting auntie explained. "You get marry, you get baby, then have boyfriend on side! But first you get marry." Hao was a lovely woman, careworn like Auntie Em, but prone to easy laughter and a sort of coquettish shyness that would coexist whenever my cavalier blundering through the intricate structure of accents in the language would turn ordinary questions into vulgar propositions, occasionally warranting a playful slap. I would protest that I don't want to get married to a woman and have any kids, but she'd just shrug and say that's the way it was, as if you just had to unlock those life achievements, then do what was natural to you. Interestingly, it was often the buddhists in the group (the night shift was roughly split halfway between Catholic Vietnamese and the buddhists) who seemed the most unsteady on the notion of queerness, sometimes quoting the nonsense the Dalai Llama used to promote about how there was some sort of imbalance in same sex relationships, but it seemed like the Vietnamese flavor of buddhism was shaped by a far more rigid thread of reward and punishment than the Tibetan stuff I'd studied. My friends took my interest as an opportunity for evangelism and started bringing me with them to Chùa Giác Hoàng, on 16th Street in DC, and it was a eye-opening and a bit like traveling the world without actually leaving the twenty-mile radius of my regular existence. I'd leave with them alternately giving me lovely vegetarian food and handfuls of bizarre buddhist comic books that were hard to read, even in translation, because the scenes went in reverse order by Western tradition, telling stories about how someone was mean to an old lady AND THEN THEY GOT HIT AND KILLED BY A BUS, BECAUSE KARMA. I sort of expected the most mushy spiritual mish-mash of hippie buddhism, but that's as true to the Asian original as stuff like yoga is to India. It's not smiley-face buddhism from dreadlocked suburbanites over there. "You wait, Joe," Hao said to me one day. "You know Hung like man, yes?" I didn't, of course, because my gaydar is faulty and because I didn't pay much attention to her grandnephew, who worked in another department. I also had learned not to snicker when rough approximations in her third language sounded vaguely dirty despite her tendency to guffaw at how I made requests for another piece of dried fruit sound like someone doing business with a prostitute, but Hung like man oh my goodness. "He is? Hung like man?" I said, trying very hard not to smirk, even like the Mona Lisa. "Vâng. When he marry, you date Hung, you be my fat nephew!" Yeah, there's a weird thing with older Vietnamese ladies about husky Americans. "Uh," I said, caught off guard, but I did sort of give Hung a sideways look now and then after that. Such a fascinating country and culture, so old and new and post-Colonial and part of an American mess and ancient and complicated and everything. It'll be nice when you can have a boyfriend not on the side, I think.

By: saysthis

saysthis — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 10:16:50 -0800

Good. Now with legal teeth pls.

By: Kreiger

Kreiger — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:03:59 -0800

Applying 'Buddhist' templates to Vietnam is a great way to confuse yourself, for sure. If anyone has the requisite background, a post on the 3-part religion would be amazing.

By: snickerdoodle

snickerdoodle — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 18:16:33 -0800

I would totally do one, because growing up with a Catholic grandmother who believed in fatal curses and a Buddist grandmother who didn't was rather a trip, but it'll be a few months before I can dig up the necessary links. Anyway, one of my aunts has been posting what can only be described as fake wedding photos (it's a legitimate recreational activity), and nobody in my family so much as blinked. It's never been discussed; suddenly she just started showing up with a girlfriend and everyone was all nonchalant about it (although I'm pretty sure I heard a great-aunt grumble something about birthing hips). I don't pretend to be plugged into Vietnamese politics, but the fact that my solidly blue-color family is all "eh, as long as there are babies" does seem to bode well for further progress.

By: sonascope

sonascope — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 18:22:14 -0800

Speaking of the three-part religion, asking people with limited English skills, none of whom belong to the religion (and who look on it as a weirdness), to explain the cosmic spiritual crazytown that is Cao Đài was always an exercise in surrealism verging on beatnik cut-up poetry. It was like trying to learn about what an elephant was from several blind people who only had a part of the elephant within reach and then played a prolonged game of telephone with all the answers. I suspect it would be like me trying to explain the Theosophical Society or Rosicrucianism to a roomful of rural Norwegians using only the remnants of Swedish I took in college twenty years ago and a lot of complicated hand gestures.

By: yueliang

yueliang — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:45:39 -0800

I'd like to know the activists who advocated for this, and the people inside the government who worked for this. Their stories always seem lost in announcements like this. also, fabulous comment by sonascope! submit that somewhere!

By: elgilito

elgilito — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 01:55:20 -0800

Here's a short doc about a group of LGBT activists in VN who did a project collecting stories across the country. There's been a Gay Pride in Hanoi for the last 3 years too, some movies etc. Since little is done in VN without some sort of official stamp, it looks that the push for LGBT rights comes from the top.

By: elgilito

elgilito — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 06:36:29 -0800

...bizarre buddhist comic books that were hard to read, even in translation, because the scenes went in reverse order by Western tradition, telling stories about how someone was mean to an old lady AND THEN THEY GOT HIT AND KILLED BY A BUS, BECAUSE KARMA Like these ones ? In the next life, one born a monkey!

By: Joe in Australia

Joe in Australia — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 18:34:44 -0800

Meanwhile, in so-very-Asian Israel, apparently political parties are fighting over which one is more welcoming of LGBT legislators:

"Amir is the first clear and visible representative of the gay community who was elected in an open primary, that is, when he was completely out," Netanyahu contended.

This turned out not to be the case, but for some reason he didn't point out that Amir is the first openly gay same-sex married representative elected in an open primary, after he was already out. Well, the first one not born in Haifa, anyway.