A same-sex couple registers their marriage during a mass same-sex marriage registration event in Bangkok on Jan. 23.
Photographer: Valeria Mongelli/BloombergSame-Sex Marriage Win Opens Up ‘Rainbow Tourism’ in Thailand
With first-mover advantage in Southeast Asia, Thailand could reap a windfall from its push for equal marital rights.
In a love story spanning almost two decades, Thai couple Ploynaplus Chirasukon and Kwanporn Kongpetch have resisted family attempts to separate them, come through a life-or-death medical emergency and endured living in the shadows of a society that only half-heartedly accepted them.
That finally changed this week. Dressed in shimmering, traditional Thai silk costumes, Plus and Gaye, as they’re known to their friends, cried tears of joy as they carefully inked their signatures on a marriage certificate that officially pronounced them spouses.