BY ALEX LINDER
On Saturday, more than a hundred thousand people showed up in downtown Taipei to show their support for gay rights in Asia's largest LGBT pride parade.
An estimated crowd of more than 118,000 people attended the annual event, the largest turnout in the parade's 15-year history. It follows a historic court ruling in April which has cleared the way for Taiwan becoming the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.
The decision by Taiwan's top constitutional court has ordered that legislators revise the Civil Code within two years with new provisions to recognize gay marriage. However, some at the parade are growing impatient with the bureaucracy's slow pace of enacting these promised changes.
"A lot of people cannot afford to wait two years," one parade-goer in a rainbow turban told the AFP. "We just want the same things heterosexual couples have. We also do our military service, we pay the same taxes, so why can't we have the same thing?"
But overall, the parade was an occasion for celebration, featuring a customary array of colorful and glittery costumes along with signs and banners carrying the message that "Love is Love."