Marriage Equality Bill becomes law

The Marriage Equality Bill has been endorsed by His Majesty the King and published in the Royal Gazette, making Thailand just the third country in Asia after Taiwan and Nepal to recognise same-sex marriage.
The law will take effect 120 days after its publication on Tuesday in the Royal Gazette, enabling same-sex couples to begin legally registering their marriages on Jan 22, 2025.
“The law is a monumental step towards equal rights in Thailand,” Waaddao Anne Chumaporn, the founder of Bangkok Pride, said on Tuesday.
She plans to organise a mass wedding for more than a thousand LGBTQ couples in Bangkok on Jan 22.
The Senate in June passed the final reading of the bill, the culmination of more than two decades of effort by activists. It was supported by an overwhelming majority of lawmakers in the upper house.
LGBT advocates hailed the move at the time, noting it would make Thailand the first nation in Southeast Asia to enact marriage equality legislation.
The law on marriage now uses gender-neutral terms in place of “men”, “women”, “husbands” and “wives”, and also grants adoption and inheritance rights to same-sex couples.
“The Marriage Equality Bill will be one of the most gender-inclusive bills as it will amend around 60-70 sections in the Civil and Commercial Codes,” the international human rights expert and legal scholar Vitit Muntarbhorn told a recent forum.
He said that around 50 other laws, such as the Surrogacy Bill, Gender Recognition Bill, employment-related bills, and welfare-related bills, need to be amended to ensure equal and inclusive legal protections for LGBTQ+ communities in Thailand.