• Thailand’s Senate approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, clearing the last legislative hurdle for the country to become the first in Southeast Asia to enact such a law, on June 18, 2024.
• The Senate voted on Tuesday, the first day of the current parliamentary session, suggesting urgency in getting the bill passed.
• The government hosted a celebration at Government House. The ground was decorated with rainbow carpets, flags and a giant balloon in the shape of two hands making a heart sign. The party was joined by politicians, celebrities, diplomats and activists from the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters who rode in a colorful parade of floats from Parliament after the vote.

Thailand’s Senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage, clearing the last legislative hurdle for the country to become the first in Southeast Asia to enact such a law.

Thailand has a reputation for acceptance and inclusivity but has struggled for decades to pass a marriage equality law. Thai society largely holds conservative values, and members of the LGBTQ community say they face discrimination in everyday life.

The government and state agencies are also historically conservative, and advocates for gender equality have had a hard time pushing lawmakers and civil servants to accept change.

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Thailand will become the third place in Asia, after Taiwan and Nepal, to allow same-sex marriage. The marriage equality bill, which grants full legal, financial and medical rights for marriage partners of any gender, sailed through the House of Representatives right before the previous parliamentary session concluded in April with the approval of 400 of the 415 members who were present.

It passed its final reading in the Senate on Tuesday with the approval of 130 of the 152 members in attendance, with 4 voting against it and 18 abstaining.

The bill now needs the pro forma endorsement of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, followed by its publication in the Government Gazette, which will set a date within 120 days when it becomes effective.

The timing of the Senate’s vote on Tuesday, the first day of the current parliamentary session, suggests the urgency in getting the bill passed. The legislation will amend the country’s Civil and Commercial Code to replace gender-specific words such as “men and women” with gender-neutral words such as “individual.”

But it was not approved without a hitch. One member of the Senate, retired army Gen. Worapong Sa-nganet, argued that the gender-specific terms should still be included in the law along with the gender-neutral terms. He said excluding them would be a severe “subversion of the institution of family” in Thailand.

After the vote, Plaifah Kyoka Shodladd, an 18-year-old who identifies as non-binary, took the floor and thanked everyone who supported the legislation, calling it a “force of hope” that will help Thailand become more accepting of diversity.

“Today, love trumps prejudice,” Plaifah said.

The government, confident of the bill’s passage, announced several days ago it would host a celebration of the occasion later Tuesday at Government House. The ground in front of the main building was decorated with rainbow carpets, flags and a giant balloon in the shape of two hands making a heart sign. The party was joined by politicians, celebrities, diplomats and activists from the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters who rode in a colorful parade of floats from Parliament after the vote.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who could not join the event because he recently tested positive for COVID-19, wrote his congratulations on social media platform X.

“I am proud of the collective effort of all stakeholders which reiterates the power of ‘unity in diversity’ of the Thai society. We will continue our fight for social rights for all people regardless of their status,” he wrote.

Passing the law is a “triumph for justice and human rights,” said Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn of the human rights organization Fortify Rights.

“The Thai government must now focus on ensuring swift and effective implementation of this law to safeguard LGBTI+ rights,” she said. “Marriage equality is fundamental to human dignity, and it is essential that Thailand protects these rights without delay or discrimination.”

The government led by the Pheu Thai party, which took office last year, has made marriage equality one of its main goals. It made a major effort to identify itself with the annual Bangkok Pride parade earlier this month, in which thousands of people celebrated in one of Bangkok’s busiest commercial districts.

A total of 77 organisations will receive funds from Austrian-German heiress Marlene Engelhorn’s inheritence.

A group tasked with giving away much of Austrian-German heiress Marlene Engelhorn’s inheritance money has announced who is benefitting.

The 32-year-old activist who advocates for higher taxes on the rich made headlines in January when she announced she would give away 25 million euros ($26.8m) – the bulk of her inheritance.

She entrusted a team to set up a citizens council of 50 Austrians to come up with ideas on how to give away her wealth.

A total of 77 organisations that fight poverty and work towards improving environmental protection, education, integration, health and affordable housing in Austria are receiving money, the group said on Tuesday.

Over a couple of years, individual organisations will receive amounts ranging from 40,000 euros ($43,000) to 1.6 million euros ($1.7m).

The heiress is a descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn from the family that founded BASF, the German chemical and pharmaceutical giant. She inherited millions when her grandmother died in 2002.

Engelhorn had said even before her grandmother died that she wished to hand out about 90 percent of her inheritance.

“If politicians don’t do their job and redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself,” she said in a statement in January.

“Many people struggle to make ends meet with a full-time job and pay taxes on every euro they earn from work. I see this as a failure of politics, and if politics fails, then the citizens have to deal with it themselves.”

Engelhorn did not participate in Tuesday’s news conference after withdrawing from the process once the council was launched.

From March to June, 50 Austrians were paid to meet on six weekends in the city of Salzburg to develop solutions “in the interests of society as a whole”.

Four members of the council shared their experiences on Tuesday, saying they enjoyed the “democratic project”, hailing it as an “exciting challenge” to find solutions to pressing issues “as equals” and based on consensus.

The youngest participant, 17-year-old student Kyrillos Gadalla, said he had “learned a lot” from every conversation he had with different council members, the oldest of whom was 85.

The charity Oxfam said in a report in January that the world’s billionaires are $3.3 trillion richer than they were in 2020 while nearly five billion people worldwide have grown poorer as it slammed “levels of obscene inequality”.

Addressing the 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also cited Oxfam as saying the wealth of the world’s five richest billionaires has more than doubled since the start of this decade while 60 percent of humanity has grown poorer.

Turk said “4.8 billion people are poorer than they were in 2019”, adding that the wealth gap between men and women globally was $100 trillion.