Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing LGBT marriage in Thailand. A major topic recently. There are two bills currently in Parliament; one would allow for same-sex marriage, the other would allow for same-sex Civil Unions. It remains to be seen exactly where it is going to fall out. I know there are a lot of people that are really pushing hard to see just full marriage equality. Sometimes it goes that way. In the United States and all kind of happened at once with the Supreme Court decision in Windsor whereas in other countries, for example a lot of the Commonwealth countries did it kind of step by step; Civil Union first then they moved up to full marriage equality. So interesting stuff. 

The reason for the video is I was recently reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Pattaya Grapevine: a forgotten Brit-Thai Connection. Under the subheading: Gay bills stuck, quoting directly: "The temporary suspension of the Prime minister, and ongoing saga, has delayed the progress of Bills to legalize gay marriage or permit gay civil unions (there are two separate drafts) as the minds of lawmakers are elsewhere. With the general election due no later than the second quarter of 2023, it's looking doubtful where wedding bells will be ringing before the next Administration takes office." That may be true, that's an interesting point to bring up. But I would say and I would hope there might be some politicians out there listening, you might want to think about those votes that are coming sooner or later at some point. Look at the end of the day the LGBT community votes and they would probably like to at least see some kind of progress with respect to this albeit I think it would be a rather bemused response if the Civil Union Bill went through but it would still be something to point to as an elected representative that "hey we were able to get that done".

For those out there who kind of, I don't know how to put it, kind of shrug their shoulders and look down on a Civil Union compared to marriage, first of all I get it, I really do. Marriage equality I get that "hey we just want equality under the law". It makes sense to me. That said, on the way to that if, you can get some benefits for example presumption of succession with respect to being an heir in the event that one’s significant other passes away; that's a pretty big deal. Also the ability to have certain medical prerogatives if your significant other is incapacitated; that is a pretty big deal and I think people overlooked that and might throw away some benefits when being a little too overzealous maybe. Again I don't know what it is like to be in the position where you don't have full marriage equality, I just haven't been through that and I can imagine it is probably very galling to say the least. But that said, Civil Unions, if that is what were to come out of this Parliament, possibly before the end of its term, I would say it should not just be shrugged off and definitely folks that are in LGBT relationships that have a partner that they definitely want to make certain preparations, certain arrangements for, again a Civil Union can be very useful to that end.