Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington, United States, January 14, 2023. Coming from the conservative party, he is today opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage. JULIA NIKHINSON / REUTERS
Japan’s main opposition party on Monday delivered a bill to parliament to legalize same-sex marriage, hoping to spur the government to move on the issue ahead of May’s G7 summit in Hiroshima.
This initiative of the Constitutional Democratic Party (PDC, centre-left) however has virtually no chance of passing given the large parliamentary majority enjoyed by the main party in power, the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, conservative right).
Prime Minister criticized
In 2019, a similar proposal by the PDC and other opposition parties had not even been debated in parliament. Japan is the only country in the G7 group that does not recognize same-sex unions. In addition, no law in the country currently sanctions discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. “I think it’s discriminatory to legally recognize marriage for heterosexual couples but not for same sex couplessaid Chinami Nishimura, MP and general secretary of the PDC.
A clear majority of the Japanese population is also in favor of recognizing same-sex marriage, according to various polls. However, the Japanese government is moving backwards on this issue. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ruled last week that failure to recognize same-sex marriage was non-discriminatory and unconstitutional, earning him heavy criticism. Fumio Kishida had ruled in the past that the legalization of same-sex unions “would change society” Japanese, and had therefore called on parliamentarians to show themselves “extremely cautious” On the question.
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At the beginning of February, however, Fumio Kishida promptly dismissed one of his secretaries who had just made homophobic remarks. On marriage, the Japanese Constitution of 1947 is content to say that it “can only take place with the mutual consent of both sexes», a wording that gives rise to numerous interpretation debates.
Several homosexual couples in Japan have been trying since 2019 to have the courts recognize that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the Constitution, another way to put pressure on the government. But the first courts to speak out delivered contradictory and ambiguous decisions.
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