China’s LGBT activists have stepped up their campaign to have same-sex unions legalised after a parliamentary official said the country “insisted on heterosexual marriage” only and dismissed public comments on the issue.

The legislature began its annual meeting in Beijing on Friday and is expected to enact the country’s first civil code. It had sought public opinions on the marriage and family section of the code in November, receiving more than 200,000 suggestions.

But on Monday, Huang Wei, an official with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said comments about legalising same-sex marriage had been sent in “an organised act”.

“The letters sent to us came in the same envelope, with the same content, and the online messages were the same – it’s all been copied and pasted,” she told news website Thepaper.cn.

Huang added that there would no change to the existing marriage law, “between a man and a woman”. LGBT activist Sun Wenlin said he was not satisfied with the parliamentary official’s justification for rejecting gay marriage. Read more via South China Morning Post