Hong Kong's Top Court Urges Same-Sex Rights Recognition

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% :Polls in Hong Kong have shown growing support for same-sex equality among the public, especially younger people.
53% : Hong Kong (CNN) -- Hong Kong's top court has ordered the city's government to set up a new framework to legally recognize the rights of same-sex couples in a partial victory for LGBTQ activists that stopped short of their demands for full marriage equality.
53% : I understand it's not full marriage equality but all things considered, it's a good decision," he said.
49% : Several successful court challenges have led to same-sex marriages entered overseas being recognized in a handful of areas, such as tax declarations, applications for spousal visas, and parental rights, though the scope remains limited.
46% : Judges ruled the freedom to marry was guaranteed under the mini-constitution but that it only referred "to heterosexual marriage."Instead, the judges ruled in a majority verdict that there was a need for "an alternative framework" granting legal recognition to same-sex couples "to provide them with a sense of legitimacy, dispelling any sense that they belong to an inferior class of persons whose relationship is undeserving of recognition."
45% : In contrast, the case that resulted in Tuesday's landmark ruling was much broader with activists asking the city's top court to rule directly on the issue of same-sex marriage after successive defeats in the lower courts.
45% :India's Supreme Court is currently debating whether to allow same-sex marriage in the world's most populous nation.
43% : But the city's government has long leaned conservative, mirroring official opposition to same-sex marriage and greater equalities on the Chinese mainland.
42% : Hong Kong does not allow or grant same-sex marriage or unions, even though homosexuality has been decriminalized in the city since 1991.
38% : And Hong Kong's judges have often sided with them, previously ruling against government lawyers and stating that the city's mini-constitution affords same-sex couples certain protections and equality that they were being denied.
37% : Activists had been hoping the court would declare that the denial of same-sex marriage breached equal rights protections in the city's mini-constitution.

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