THE 16TH ANNUAL pride parade took place today in Taipei, drawing an claimed 140,000 participants, which would be a new record. This year’s pride parade would be a politically charged event, seeing as a referendum on gay marriage is set to take place next month during elections on November 24th, and this question loomed over the event. The parade is generally touted as Asia’s largest pride parade.

Among participating groups would be the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline, Taiwan Tongzhi Family Advocacy, representatives of pride parades in other parts of Taiwan such as in Taichung, Yilan, and Kaohsiung, as well as corporate groups including Uber, Google, Hornet, and others. Third Force parties running in upcoming local elections, including the New Power Party (NPP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Radical Party, were also present.

“Indeed, many speeches today at the pride parade were responding to criticisms of marriage equality by anti-gay groups, such as speakers emphasizing the importance of sexual education and teaching pluralized and diverse social values through education, or that gay marriage is not incompatible with Asian social values in the way that anti-gay groups sometimes claimed. ”

The parade this year divided between three routes, as is standard practice for the pride parade in Taipei as a congestion relief effort. Organizers hoped for a large turnout as a demonstration that Taiwanese society supports marriage equality and the march very likely met expectations. Through the course of the parade, volunteers distributed materials urging voters to return to their places of registration during elections to vote in favor of gay marriage and sexual education.

Before protests by Christian-led anti-gay groups, it was generally expected that marriage equality would smoothly pass into law in Taiwan and that Taiwan would become the first country to legalize gay marriage in Asia. Few expected organized resistance to marriage equality and it would be shocking for members of the LGBTQ and their allies that anti-gay groups would be successfully able to apply pressure to the DPP to reverse course. Read more via New Bloom