Tokyo will become the largest Japanese city to recognise same-sex partnerships as pressure grows on the national government to legalise gay marriage.
The capital city announced that the reform would apply from April next year, though activists are questioning whether it will provide all the rights married couples enjoy.
Japan is the only G7 nation not to legally recognise gay marriage, though more than 100 local authorities do recognise selected rights for same-sex partnerships, such as rights related to hospital visits and joint names on rental contracts.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly unanimously called for recognition and the governor, Yuriko Koike, said that the city would implement a system that recognises same-sex partnerships as equivalent to marriage. “In response to the wishes of Tokyo residents and those concerned by this issue, we will draft a basic principle to recognise same-sex partnerships this fiscal year,” Koike said late yesterday.
When the metropolitan government carried out an online survey of residents on the topic more than 70 percent of respondents said that equality for same-sex partnerships was a necessary policy.
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Details have yet to be announced and LGBT rights campaigners pointed out that under the limited recognition offered by some local governments same-sex couples do not enjoy the same tax benefits as married couples.
The group Marriage for All Japan welcomed Tokyo’s decision, but tweeted: “However, the partnership system does not have the same legal effect as marriage. The government should hurry up and legalise marriage nationally!”
In March, a court in Sapporo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, the first such decision in Japan.
However, the Japanese constitution states that: “Marriage shall be only with the mutual consent of both sexes.” No amendments have been passed since it was effectively imposed on Japan by the occupying US forces in 1947, making it the oldest unamended constitution of any nation.
Traditionally, there have been no religious objections to homosexuality in Japan and a majority in recent opinion polls have expressed support for gay marriage. The socially conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been less keen, however, and a number of its MPs have expressed homophobic views.
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At a parliamentary hearing to discuss discrimination against sexual minorities in May Kazuo Yana, 42, said that being gay “goes against the preservation of the species”. He declined to apologise for the remarks and was not disciplined.
During his leadership campaign in September Fumio Kishida, the prime minister, said that he had “not reached the point of accepting same-sex marriage”.
