Hundreds of gay couples in Taiwan have rushed to get married on Friday – the first day a landmark decision that legalised same-sex marriage took effect. Taiwan became the first country in Asia to allow same-sex marriage last week in a legislative vote on a cause that the island’s LGBT rights’ activists have championed for two decades. A household registration office in central Taipei was packed as couples seized the earliest opportunity to tie the knot. Jubilant couples held bouquets of flowers and posed for photos, smiling and kissing. “The legalisation of marriage is only the first step,” said a 48-year-old novelist who writes under the pen name Chen Hsue.