of the couple's relationship and cohabitation while arriving at its verdict, stating, "The couple lived together, shared wealth, comforted each other, and relied on each other in their twilight years, but their union could not be recognized as marriage because they were of the same sex, even though their lives were consistent with the essence of marriage." Legal proposals The Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China (, pinyin: , ) defined marriage as between a man and a woman, but this law was repealed in 2021. Li Yinhe, a sexology scholar well known in the Chinese LGBT community, proposed the Chinese Same-Sex Marriage Bill (, pinyin: ) as an amendment to the marriage law at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008. All four proposals failed because she was unable to find enough cosponsors for a placement on the agenda. Li pledged to "continue proposing the bill until it is passed". In 2008, supporters of LGBT rights launched a campaign to collect signatures calling for the recognition of same-sex marriage. In 2012, Li launched a new campaign to raise support for same-sex marriage legislation. There were unsuccessful attempts to include provisions legalising same-sex marriage in the new Civil Code in 2020. In August 2019, a parliament spokesman said that "limiting marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman will remain China's legal position". In December 2019, LGBT activists announced they had gathered over 200,000 signatures in support of same-sex marriage. Later that month, Yue Zhongming, spokesman for the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, said that the National People's Congress would review the possibility of opening marriage to same-sex couples in March 2020 and opened the topic to public comments. Several government-related Sina Weibo accounts launched online opinion polls to gauge public support for same-sex marriage, with results as of 22 December 2019 being a ratio of 6 to 4 in favor. Results of an online Phoenix Network survey, which had garnered close to 10 million votes, showed a 67% majority in favor of same-sex marriage. In May 2020, an official from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress claimed that the signatures and comments in support of same-sex marriage the committee had received were "copied and pasted" and said that the ban on same-sex marriage would be maintained. Article 1046 of the code states: