New Constitution

[rak sa_ngop]

I was walking past Sala Deng BST on Silom yesterday afternoon when there was a group of self-proclaimed gay, lesbian and TG protesters handing out yellow leaflets which I believe addresses some concerns to do with the new proposed constitution.

As my reading of Thai political text is rather slow (too many irregular spellings) can anybody give a summary of what is contained in this pamphlet (on the back is drawn a red,yellow and green traffic signal) and what they were protesting about. Not sure where you can get a copy of this leaflet though. The only English is "Call Center: 1743" on the back.

Thanks

[petecooper]

The only English is "Call Center: 1743" on the back.

So why don't you call the Call Center? Let us know what they tell you! (I'd do it myself but am not in Thailand right now.)

[rak sa_ngop]

The only English is "Call Center: 1743" on the back.

So why don't you call the Call Center? Let us know what they tell you! (I'd do it myself but am not in Thailand right now.)

The call center has a Government? recorded message in Thai regarding the New Constitution. It informs the caller to access the www.parliament.go.th website which has an animated information cartoon in Thai. (quite cute!)

I think the leaflet is therefore a Government information leaflet. So I am not sure what the small demonstration was about.

[ProThaiExpat]

My mate returned with a pile of those brochures and advised me Katoy were passing them out.

The proposed constitution does not address gay rights but does have a equal rights provision. I tutor a judge and we use the proposed constitution as a discussion topic.

When presented with the issue of treating all people equal and yet denying only some the right to marry who they like, the judge said it is just not the law in Thailand. He did appreciate the theoretical arguments for gay marriage as a basic human right but sides on the side of those who say that the right to marry is not a basic right, only one given by the government and when given, the government can define what they mean by marriage.

One only read the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage and you will have all the rationale for why marriage is a basic human right and that anything short of that, including civil unions, are clearly a denial of equal rights. Make no mistake, if the government defines a civil union as the union of one person with another person with all the rights and responsibilities that now attach to the word "marriage" and leaves the word "marriage" to the churches, then you do have equality.