With the infuriating and hateful voice of a slight majority, a referendum repealing the decision of the Maine State Supreme court, which allowed gay marriage in the State of Maine, was passed this past election day.  It’s sad news, especially for a young gay guy like myself.  Luckily, I am not an old man living in Maine with the man I want to marry, though I feel very sorry for that man.  I have a long life ahead of me and I live in Shanghai, so this decision, while completely wrong and detrimental to America’s future and to the principles on which our nation stands for, doesn’t bother me so much.  While the Catholic Diocese (who organized this fight against equal marriage in Maine) may be patting themselves on the back right now, I’m laughing at them.  Anyone who thinks that in 20 years these results would happen again is delusional.  I’m on the winning side in this fight and me and my fellow LGBT Americans are not going to lose hope over this example of 20th century hate that has no place in today’s world.  One of the organizers against Maine’s referendum had it right when they said: “We’re not short-timers; we are here for the long haul.  Whether it’s just all night and into the morning, or next week or next month or next year, we will be here. We’ll be fighting, we’ll be working. We will regroup.” (via The Bangor Daily News).  Besides, I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Maine over the years (like the New Englander that I am) and that State we always be a happy gay place in my mind, no matter what the old haters try to make it.  I try to remember that I still have equal rights in my home state of Massachusetts, Vermont (where I went to school), Connecticut, Iowa, and New Hampshire – so my rights aren’t directly affected.

Now that I have that off my chest lets talk about gay rights here in China.  The big news is that Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, held the seventh annual LGBT Pride Parade last weekend.  While Shanghai may be a really gay city it’s not much into being gay and proud in public during the day, we got Chinese culture and the Communist government here, dude.  Taiwan has a bit of lead on Mainland China when it comes to gay rights and speaking your mind in public, so it’s not very surprising that the parade in Taipei is the largest Gay Pride in all of Asia – 25,000 people joined in the festivities this year.

People were speaking out for gay marriage, the right to adopt children and start families with their partners.  The crux of the problem for gay rights in China and East Asia is that while being gay can be (kind of) okay if it is practiced clandestinely and if relationships are not given the same weight as heterosexual ones, the culture and governments over here don’t want such relationships to be legitimatized.  So I think that the big hurdle for gay rights in China will be in changing people’s minds that being gay can in fact lead to a lasting legitimate relationship, while in America the problem is getting the old and hateful people to recognize that open gay relationships should have the choice to become a sanctified marriage.  Step by step people…

Whatever people want to think, gay people are still going to start serious relationships and live with the person they love – just as humans have for millennium.  I know some gay couples here in China that live together, they’re all either made up of two foreigners or a Chinese person and a foreigner, I don’t know any Chinese-Chinese gay couples living together.  It’s not that big a deal, especially since none of the couples I know live in rural Chinese villages and most live far away from their families.  I was happy to read about just such a couple in a recent article in the New York Times (In China, Apartment Renovation Presents New Challenges) about a gay couple, consisting of a Chinese and American man, who recently renovated the apartment they share in Dalian.

Now, a gay couple talking about a their apartment renovation is about as rare as people wearing red underwear on the Chinese New Year’s eve.  I have a friend here in Shanghai who the night I met him literally never stopped talking about the interior decoration plans for the apartment he shares with his boyfriend here in Shanghai.  We gay guys nest in well-thought out beautiful spaces.  Besides hearing about the issues involved in renovating a Chinese apartment in a minimalist American style, which is a world away from the average Chinese style, it was interesting hearing a little about how an American gay man was making a permanent home with his Chinese boyfriend.  One thing that really intrigued me was the fact that the Chinese man’s father organized the workers for the renovation, transporting them from the family’s hometown five hours away.  The article doesn’t go into the father’s thoughts about his son living with his American boyfriend, though I really wish it had.  There’s also an interesting bit about extortion.  All in all a fun read, even if you aren’t interested in issues related to gay rights in China.  Makes we wonder whether living with your gay boyfriend in a Chinese city might be easier than doing so in some parts of America, minus the extortion, of course.

UPDATE: ChinaSmack has posted a translation of a mainland China BBS post about the recent Taiwan LGBT Pride parade.  It includes some pictures from the parade and a bunch of translated comments written by Chinese netizens.  The comments are by and large very disparaging of homosexuals, though there are some nice comments calling for people to accept homosexual love.  A couple of commenters mentioned God as a basis for their hatred of homosexuals, a sign that religious hatred of homosexuals is gaining ground in China.  It was a kind of sad read for me.  There was no mention in ChinaSmack’s translation about the differences between Taiwan and mainland China when it comes to gay rights or freedoms, which I thought to be rather surprising.