On Homosexual Love and Right to Same-Sex Marriage: Questioning the Paradox of #LoveWins Discourse

Abstract

As the decriminalization of homosexuality becomes a global trend, support for the legalization of same-sex marriage in many countries can be found on social media. Since the hashtag, #LoveWins, first erupted on social media-when the US Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional rights of same-sex marriage in June 2015-it has become one of the most cited hashtags for celebrating the decriminalization of homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage across the globe. Amidst the ongoing confrontation between advocates of the junta-backed legislation related to same-sex marriage laws, known as ‘Thailand’s Civil Partnership Draft Bills, ' and its detractors, the hashtag has widely been employed by active Thai social media users for creating an LGBT-friendly atmosphere while attempting to neutralize the bi-polarized politics of the law. Again, during the national elections of 2019, it was widely used for rebranding parties’ gay-friendly image. The use of #LoveWins, and any hashtags quoting ‘love’ and ‘wins’, is a discursive tool and an expression of the Western-centric normativity of homosexual love, which itself is associated with Eurocentric modernity and heteronormativity. This chapter, as a Netnographical study, focuses on how #LoveWins is used by analyzing its discursive implications in the hypertexts of the hashtag as articulated by Thailand’s social media users on Twitter during the Drafted-Bills period and the national election in late 2018 to mid-2019. Specifically, it considers how this dynamic seeks to decolonize the discourse of the universality of love and advocate for a more inclusive non-heteronormative meaning of love, a so-called ‘queer love’, in a non-imperialist manner.