Author: 陳小寶 1 October 2012
It is not too much to say that the odd man out has always had a new and unique view on the gay movement, and that is why he has always been an odd man out. In the course of the interview, we can strongly feel the controversial character of the conflicting and diversified directions that have been mixed together in the body of Mr. Pray.
The story of Brother Prayer began in the early 1980s, during the time of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, when gays were forced to equate AIDS with stigma, and Brother Prayer felt compelled by the apocalypse to appear in front of the media to dedicate his life to the gay community.
Later on, Mr. Pray realized that in order to improve the situation of the gays and lesbians, the disadvantaged position of the gays and lesbians could not be fundamentally resolved at the social level. Therefore, he changed his strategy of campaigning, and in order to turn the situation around, he had to tackle the problem at the institutional level, and the right to marriage was the only one that referred to homosexuality. Therefore, in 2000, Big Brother Prayer applied for an interpretation of the Constitution by the Chief Justice after his application for a civil marriage certificate was rejected by the court. However, it is not easy to fight from within the system. A few years later, Mr. Chai was notified that the case had been permanently frozen.
A Decade of Walking and Watching
For Brother Chih, the LGBT march in Taiwan has a high formal significance, and this visibility is indispensable for society to see the existence of LGBT people through the annual march. However, he also has a lot of suggestions for the march. Comparing to the LGBT rallies in the United States and Brazil, he believes that the shortcoming of Taiwan's rallies comes from the inability to gather enough citizens. Because of the scale of the march, the general public's perception of the march would tend to be "I allow you to come out and walk around on this day, but I am still not happy to see you in my life". Therefore, in order to eliminate this possibility, apart from the problem of scale, it is more important to start with new and innovative activities with special meanings.
Brother Prayer mentioned that the annual march is like having a gay festival in a year, but in the other 364 days, gay people still disappear in all corners of the society, so it is better to have a gay season from June 19th to September 16th every year (symbolizing 1069), in this giant event, to arouse the society's attention to the people more thoroughly. Or we can cross Taipei City and New Taipei City to convey the meaning of "transgender" and let the community know that the LGBT community has entered a new era.
What do you think of 'Revolutionary Marriage'?
So how does Mr. Pray bring different suggestions for the gay community from this year's theme? Brother Pray thinks, in fact, the concept of the right to marriage is a goal that has been fought for since before the march, so its importance is undeniable, but the re-talking of the right to marriage now, twelve years later, in fact, represents a warning that: in the institutional level, we have no breakthroughs in the progress of the system, and we are still striving to crash outside the system, but don't forget the necessity of the implosion within the system!
Lastly, we pray that we will be able to: "I hope that our gay and lesbian friends will walk the road of their future lives with joy and confidence, not only in this moment of the march!
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