Hundreds of LGBTQ couples in Thailand held weddings on Thursday as Thailand's landmark marriage equality law comes into effect. Thailand is the first country or region in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, and the third country or region in Asia after Taiwan and Nepal.
More than 100 couples held a mass wedding at a shopping mall in central Bangkok on Thursday.
"We are happy that Thai people here can now express their love in public and have it accepted by the whole world," Ruchaya Nillikan, 45, who got married in the ceremony, told CBS News Partner network of BBC News. "It means the world to us... We've worked hard to get to where we are today."
One couple said they waited 13 years to get married, while another said they waited 17 years.
"Every love is the same, every love is the same at the heart," Porsch Apiwatsayree told broadcaster Sky News. He and his partner got engaged 11 years ago.
Chanatip Sirihirhirunchai told the BBC: "I'm particularly excited today because we will have laws to protect both of us."
"Our next official plan is to change my documents as I list him as my brother. Now I can officially call him my spouse," Pisit, Sirihirunchai's new spouse, told the UK network.
"I want Thailand to be a country that inspires its ASEAN neighbors to open the door of freedom for all mankind," newlywed Setthapas Na Thalang, 43, told the BBC.
Thailand has long been considered more accepting of LGBTQ people than its neighbors. Last June, the Senate Passes landmark marriage equality bill. The bill changes gender-specific provisions in Thailand's marriage law to gender-neutral ones, The Guardian reported.
Campaigners on Thursday praised the new marriage law as a good first step but said other reforms were needed to provide better protections for LGBTQ couples. Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn, an activist with the group Strengthen Rights, told the Guardian that the country's civil and commercial laws still need to be revised.
"From a legal perspective, the biological parents are still considered to be the male father and the female mother," Yang Yuanpradorn said. This means that in a same-sex couple, one parent has no legal relationship with his or her child. child.