Pressure is building on Japan’s government to legalise same-sex unions after a court ruled that a ban on them was unconstitutional.
Rights advocates said the ruling on Tuesday by Nagoya district court was a step forward in the campaign to end Japan’s status as the only G7 country not to fully recognise same-sex unions.
It is the second time a court in Japan has ruled the ban unconstitutional, while two other courts have decreed the ban is in line with the postwar constitution, which defines marriage as based on “the mutual consent of both sexes”.
But the Nagoya court, ruling on a lawsuit filed by two men who are in a relationship, rejected the couple’s demand that the state pay each of them 1m yen (£5,715) in compensation for denying them the right to marry.
This ruling has rescued us from the hurt of last year’s ruling that said there was nothing wrong with the ban, and the hurt of what the government keeps saying,” the couple’s lawyer, Yoko Mizushima, told journalists and supporters outside the court.
Mizushima was referring to a ruling in Osaka last year that the ban was not unconstitutional. A court in Tokyo later reached a similar conclusion but said the lack of legal protection for same-sex families violated their human rights.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/...ex-marriage-ban
Japan is one step closer to legalize gay marriage
May 31 2023, 08:47 AM, updated 3y ago
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