On June 23, 2015, Sun Wenlin, who initially had planned to stay single, went to the Furong District Civil Affairs Bureau in Changsha City with his boyfriend Hu MinLiang to register their marriage on the first anniversary of their acquaintance.
Although the marriage certificate is just a piece of paper, in critical moments, one can use such a piece of paper to prove that both individuals mentioned are a couple instead of mere strangers, and thus each have the right to sign as a family member on behalf of each other, for example the notice of a critically ill person.
Marriage also involves some practical benefits such as inheritance of property and the like. ” If you want to become a family member of someone with whom you don’t have a blood relationship, you can only achieve that by getting married.” Sun Wenlin quipped, “We can’t adopt each other.”
Unlike the average person, Mr. Sun believes that gay marriage is legal in China, but just no one does it. He looked through the Marriage Law six times and couldn’t find a single word banning or prohibiting gay marriage. Mr. Sun believes that marrying his lover is his “natural human right”. However, the local Civil Affair Bureau refused to grant them a certificate of marriage, on the grounds that “only one man and one woman can marry each other”.
As a result, Mr. Sun sued the Civil Affairs Bureau. The case was accepted by a local court on 5 January 2016. Mr. Sun’s attorney said at the time that the first gay marriage registration case in China could be filed, whether successful or not, was of historical significance.
Most people believed at the time that surely they were going to lose the case. Mr. Sun and his lawyer, however, did not think so. Mr Sun said the original text of the Marriage Law does not refer to the concept of “one man and a woman” but rather to the principle of “monogamy”. He felt that “monogamy” does not only mean “a man and a woman”, but also “a man and a man” or “a woman and a woman”, only such a law can be considered non-discriminatory”.
Wang Zhenyu, a lawyer who has represented several sexual minority cases, believes that “marriage registration” is an act of “administrative confirmation” rather than an act of “administrative license”, and hence a right of “confirmation” rather than “authorization”. Any marriage should be registered in the absence of a legal prohibition.
After one extension, the case was finally scheduled for a public hearing on 13 April 2016. The court hearing, which lasted two and a half hours, appeared to have gone through all the processes seriously, with several arguments between the claimant and defendant. The arguments include the administrative inaction of the defendant’s, illegal working procedures, etc. Before the court hearing, Mr. Sun prepared more than 30 questions, including the status of “spouse of a gay person”, but did not have the opportunity to ask. The lawyer asked the defendant：”Do you discriminate against homosexuals?” and was interrupted by the judge, “This question is irrelevant and does not need to be answered.”
The Court pronounced that China’s relevant marriage laws and regulations clearly state that the subject of marriage refers to both men and women who meet the legal conditions for marriage. Sun and Hu are both men, their application for marriage registration clearly does not comply with the related provisions. Sun Wenlin and Hu Bright’s claims cannot be granted.
As a consequence, they both lost the case. The verdict made no mention of the trial debate, “Looks like it was written in advance,” Sun said, adding that at the moment he heard the verdict, he felt “disgusted” that heterosexual-led laws were enacted that did not protect the rights of gays or other sexual minorities.
But they still held a wedding ceremony on May 17, 2016. On the same day in 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which was no longer considered to be a mental illness.
Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China
