Hong Kong gay couples have to get married outside the city

The Hong Kong board wants to recognize relationships between people of the same sex. If couples are registered with the city council, they will receive a limited number of rights that heterosexual couples also have, such as visiting rights in hospitals or the possibility of making decisions about the funeral of a deceased partner.

But the recognition is according to the proposal emphatically not equal to a marriage. Activists who stand up for equal rights are therefore disappointed with the proposal. Many crucial cases, such as inheritance law issues, adoption and custody, are not regulated.

In addition, couples can only be recognized by the Hong Kong administration if they have first entered into a registered partnership or marriage abroad. In Hong Kong itself, closing thereof is not possible for gay couples.

With the proposal, the city administration responds to a ruling of the highest court in 2023. He then ruled that the lack of any formal recognition of homorelations was discriminatory, and the city administration dedicated to come up with an arrangement within two years.

Discriminatory

That case was brought by Jimmy Sham, an activist and former district councilor who was married to his partner in the United States in the United States. Sham (38) conducted the case from prison, where he had been locked up since 2021 as a member of the ‘Hong Kong 47’, a group of proddemocratic activists, politicians and lawyers who opposed the power of the government in Beijing. Last November he received four years and three months in prison. He was released in May because he had served his sentence thanks to the long custody.

The Hong Kong Marriage Equality organization, which is committed to equal rights for gay couples, mentions the proposal in a statement “A miniscule step”, which does little to tackle the more than one hundred examples of unequal treatment – identified by a government committee. The requirement that couples first have their relationship formalized outside of Hong Kong calls HKME unfair. Not everyone can pay for that. A spokesperson for Next Chapter, an organization that helps to have their marriage to register from Hong Kong in the United States, says to the independent news site Hong Kong Free Press That that procedure can cost nearly 2,400 euros. A wedding booklet in Hong Kong itself, only available for heteroker couples, costs a little more than 200 euros.

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“The simplest, fairest and most effective way is of course to put an end to the exclusion of gay couples in marriage, as almost forty other jurisdictions have been done without adverse consequences worldwide,” writes HKME.

But the city council certainly does not want that, according to the bill: “Since there are different views in society about the recognition of relationships between people of the same sex (…), we must look for the right balance to prevent social division and the undermining of social harmony.”

Support for same -sex marriage

Yet the support for same -sex marriage in Hong Kong has been increasing for years. According to An opinion investigation Of three universities in 2023, 60 percent of Hong Kongers supported equal marriage rights, compared to 38 percent ten years earlier. At the moment, only Taiwan and Thailand have same -sex marriage in Asia. In Nepal Gay couples can get ‘for the time being’ to get married, but await the formal status of their commitment for a judgment of the Supreme Court.

HKME expects that the plan, if it is assumed, will not put an end to the series of lawsuits for equal rights. They regularly fall in favor of gay activists. For example, Hong Kong’s highest court ruled in November that couples of the same sex, like heterosexuals, have the right to register together for a social rental home.

Earlier, in 2018, a judge forced the city administration to recognize foreign gay marriages of expats, for example when applying for a partner service.

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