Tag Archives: same-sex couples

In landmark ruling, Japan court says it is ‘unconstitutional’ to bar same-sex marriage

By Elaine Lies and Rikako Maruyama

TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese court ruled on Wednesday that not allowing same-sex couples to get married is “unconstitutional,” setting a precedent in the only G7 nation not to fully recognize same-sex partnership.

The ruling by a district court, the first in Japan on the legality of same-sex marriages, is a major symbolic victory in a country where the constitution still defines marriage as being based on “the mutual consent of both sexes.”

Following the ruling, plaintiffs and supporters unfurled rainbow flags and banners in front of the court.

While a new law will be needed before same-sex marriages can actually take place – which could take some time in socially conservative Japan – the plaintiffs’ lawyer called the ruling “revolutionary,” while LGBT activists deemed it life-changing.

“Its value is absolutely measureless,” said 44-year old Gon Matsunaka, director of activist group Marriage for All Japan and representative of Pride House Tokyo.

“Until the ruling was announced, we didn’t know this was what we’d get and I’m just overjoyed.”

While Japanese law is considered relatively liberal by Asian standards, social attitudes have kept the LGBT community largely invisible in the world’s third largest economy. Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriages in 2019.

Under the current rules in Japan, same-sex couples are not allowed to legally marry, can’t inherit their partner’s assets – such as the house they may have shared – and also have no parental rights over their partners’ children.

Though partnership certificates issued by individual municipalities help same-sex couples to rent a place together and have hospital visitation rights, they still don’t give them the same full legal rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples.

“Sexual orientation cannot be changed or selected by a person’s will,” the ruling said. “It is discriminatory treatment … that they cannot receive even some of the legal benefits that heterosexuals do.”

The Sapporo District Court threw out the demand for damages by the six plaintiffs – two couples of men and one of women – who had asked that the Japanese government pay 1 million yen ($9,168.42) each in acknowledgment of the pain they suffered by not being able to legally marry.

But Takeharu Kato, the lawyer of the plaintiffs, called the verdict overall “revolutionary,” while urging parliament to quickly start working on a law to make same-sex marriage possible.

“We praise this ruling for taking in the plaintiffs’ earnest appeals,” the lawyer told a news conference.

SAME JOYS, SAME PROBLEMS

Similar cases are currently being heard in four other courts around Japan and this ruling may indirectly influence their outcome.

“Only because the gender of the person we love is different, we can’t get married. We live the same lives as heterosexuals, have the same troubles and the same joys,” said one of the plaintiffs, a woman known only as “E.”

“Though our lives are exactly the same, the nation wouldn’t recognize this.”

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a news conference he had not read the ruling in detail but that the government would “carefully watch” the outcomes of the other court cases.

While homosexual sex has been legal in Japan since 1880, social stigma means many have yet to come out even to their families. The Japanese ruling also came just days after the Vatican said priests cannot bless same-sex unions.

Some in the business world say Japanese rules not allowing same-sex marriage hurt the country’s competitive advantage, by making it difficult for companies, especially foreign companies, to attract and keep highly-skilled labor in an increasingly international economy.

Tokyo residents also welcomed the ruling, saying it was about time things changed.

“Japan has always been conservative, but these days things are becoming more open,” said 60-year old dentist Kyoko Enomoto. “I think it will open up a lot more from now on.”

(Additional reporting by Akira Tomoshige and Daniel Leussink; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Ana Nicolaci da Costa)

U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs appeal by official who opposed gay marriage

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a bid by a county clerk in Kentucky briefly jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to two same-sex couples to avoid lawsuits they filed that accuse her of violating their constitutional rights.

The justices turned away an appeal by Kim Davis, who no longer serves as Rowan County Clerk, of a lower court ruling that allowed the lawsuits to proceed. But two conservative justices who voted in dissent against legalizing gay marriage in the court’s landmark 2015 ruling said in an opinion released as part of Monday’s action that the case, Obergefell v. Hodges, continues to have “ruinous consequences” for religious liberty.

“Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Samuel Alito.

Thomas said the Obergefell decision has left “those with religious objections in the lurch” and made it easier to label them as bigots “merely for refusing to alter their religious beliefs in the wake of prevailing orthodoxy.”

Both justices agreed with the decision to reject the Davis appeal for technical reasons.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Davis could be sued in her individual capacity in her former role as county clerk. The 6th Circuit rejected her argument that she is protected by a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity, which can shield government officials from liability in certain cases.

Davis, who has earned praise from some conservative Christians, defended her actions by saying that she stopped issuing marriage licenses to everyone regardless of sexual orientation, and the plaintiffs could have obtained licenses elsewhere.

She was jailed for five days in the aftermath of the Obergefell decision for defying court orders to issue licenses in accordance with the high court’s ruling.

The couples – David Ermold and David Moore, and Will Smith and James Yates – sued Davis in 2015, accusing her of violating their constitutional right to marry as recognized in the Obergefell ruling for refusing to provide them marriage licenses. Both couples received their licenses while Davis was in jail.

The stance taken by Thomas and Alito, two of the court’s most conservative justices, comes as the Senate is moving forward quickly with the confirmation process for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite of Christian conservatives. With the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, only three of the justices who made up the court’s 5-4 majority in the Obergefell ruling still serve on the bench.

In the Obergefell ruling, the court found that the Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law meant states cannot ban same-sex marriages.

In recent years, a number of cases have arisen around the country testing the scope of the Obergefell decision, and the rights of those to object to gay marriage on religious grounds.

On Nov. 4, the justices are due to hear a major religious rights dispute involving the city of Philadelphia’s refusal to place children for foster care with a Catholic agency that bars same-sex couples from serving as foster parents.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Will Dunham)