Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat, a member of the Move Forward Party, said the civil partnership bill and marriage equality bill cannot be tabled together because they differ in principles.
"They can't be articulated together. If you want to push civil partnership, go on because it is a different principle, but they should be separated for consideration," he told a forum at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand last week.
"If the government wants to compare with my bill, it should make a similar draft."
Government officials declined an invitation to the panel. While the marriage equality bill seeks to amend the law to allow anyone to marry, the civil partnership bill recognises same-sex union and offers fewer rights and benefits to them.
Despite its free-wheeling attitude to LGBTI people, Thailand falls behind in guaranteeing their basic rights. A source from the Justice Ministry once said it is pushing for gradual change to avoid backlash. Tunyawaj didn't object to the campaign for civil partnership, which received the cabinet's nod in July 2020, but insisted that it doesn't preclude the possibility of passing another resolution for marriage equality.
"The problem is some people think they are the same," he said.
The House of Representatives voted last month for the cabinet to study the opposition's proposed amendment for 60 days. Critics denounced the decision for freezing the draft legislation, which will return to parliament in April.
The Rainbow Coalition for Marriage Equality, a network of over 56 civil society organisations and activist groups, also joined the forum. It launched a petition to push for marriage equality at a protest at Ratchaprasong Intersection last November. It is currently backed by over 290,000 signatures.
It is quite similar to the opposition's bill, but its proposal for gender-neutral terms entails changing the words "mother" and "father" into "parent". Tunyawaj refrained from doing that because it will affect over 1,000 laws and LGBTI families are not based on bloodline succession.
