Close on the heels of LGBT rights groups stepping up their campaign to press for a civil code amendment that will legalize same-sex weddings in Taiwan, now religious organizations have jumped into the fray, seeking public support to block the amendment.

The Taiwan Religious Groups Caring Family Alliance, an umbrella of religious bodies, is opposing same-sex marriages on the ground that they will lead to the legalization of adultery and incest and promote promiscuity.

Last week, the alliance called a press conference to announce they would defend traditional values and start a signature campaign to prevent parliament from legalizing same-sex marriages.

Chang Chuan-feng, vice president of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, a controversial cult, was the most outspoken against gay union, branding the campaign for it an international movement for sexual liberation and promiscuity that would destroy traditional morality.

‘Once same-sex marriage is legalized, there will be more and more homosexual people,’ Chang said. ‘In the future, children will receive an education that teaches them homosexuality is fine, which will bring severe consequences.’

He also said that if legislators approved of the amendment, it would promote promiscuity and lead to the legalization of adultery and incest.

The pastor of Taiwan Lutheran Church, Chen Chih-hung, said if gay marriages became legal, it would encourage more people to become gay, which would destroy monogamy, which was best for society.

A traditional Buddhist leader, who was unnamed, was reported as saying traditional moral standards were the pillars of Chinese society, keeping it intact for centuries. A few sexually liberated people should not be allowed to weaken this foundation.

Earlier this month, the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) had held a mass mock wedding banquet in Taipei to boost their campaign for the legalization of same-sex weddings.

The renewed campaign comes after a TAPCPR survey found 53 percent of Taiwanese support the legalization of same-sex marriage with only 37 percent of people against the move.

The survey brought new cheer because it showed public support for gay rights had doubled in a decade, thanks to the campaigns for gay rights going on globally.

Soon after the religions leaders expressed their opposition to gay marriages, LGBT activists received staunch media support when the China Post newspaper said in an editorial that while anti-gay marriage groups were free to state their opinion, gay marriages did have ‘the potential to lend dignity to the lives of these individuals and reduce the public and private discrimination which they currently face’.

It also said that ‘a person’s sexual orientation has not been definitively linked to any difference in the likelihood of that person committing a crime’.

The China Post rounded off the argument pointing out that while in countries like India gay marriages remain strictly forbidden, yet sexual crimes such as the gang-rape and murder still occur with astonishing frequency.

