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The Hong Kong Legislative Council rejected this Wednesday a proposal by the local Government to establish a limited recognition mechanism for same-sex unions in the former British colony.
The vote, which ended with 71 votes against a total of 86, rejected the initiative, which contemplated that same-sex couples could request recognition of their relationship in the semi-autonomous city, provided that said union was registered abroad as a marriage, de facto couple or valid civil union.
Lawmakers against the proposal argued that the initiative had not achieved sufficient social consensus and pointed out that more than 8,000 of some 10,000 submissions sent to the Council rejected the text, according to the local newspaper South China Morning Post.
"We are not a Council that is limited to ratifying the government's decisions. If we had to simply abide by what the Court of Final Appeal dictates, there would be no need for Council members to participate in any debate," said Peter Siu Ka-fai, of the Liberal Party, quoted by the newspaper.
The text specified that this recognition would not be equivalent to marriage and would be limited to granting rights in medical areas, such as hospital visits and access to the couple's medical history, and in matters after death, among other issues.
The draft required that couples be of the same sex, of legal age and without blood ties, that neither member maintain a marital relationship with third parties and that at least one of them be a resident of Hong Kong.
The Executive had defended that the design of the mechanism sought to reconcile the current social system with the "traditional values" of the region. Unions registered under the rejected proposal would not have had the same legal consideration as marriage.
The proposal responded to a ruling by the Court of Final Appeal in 2023, which determined that the Government was in breach of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights by not offering a legal framework for same-sex couples and granted two years to develop regulations guaranteeing their "fundamental rights", without specifying their scope.
Although the court rejected the recognition of homosexual marriage, its decision on the need for a framework of rights was seen as a victory for the LGBT+ community.
"The proposal on same-sex unions was flawed, but by rejecting it, an alarming disregard for LGBT+ rights has been shown," said Nadia Rahman, a researcher at the NGO Amnesty International, who added that the vote represents "a setback that shows how far Hong Kong still has to go" in "equal rights."
Rahman explained that the project "would have provided the essential minimum protection for same-sex couples", but regretted that "even a small step forward in the rights of same-sex couples has proven unacceptable to the Legislative Council".
In Hong Kong, homosexual relations were decriminalized in 1991, but same-sex couples have not had legal recognition due to the strict definition of marriage in force in the territory.
