Shibuya Ward in Tokyo, long known for its youth culture, night life, and the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, will become the first locale in Japan to recognize same-sex relationships.
Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward plans to issue certificates recognizing same-sex couples as being in “relationships equivalent to marriage,” becoming the first local government body in the country to do so.
The plan has been outlined in a draft statute incorporated in a fiscal 2015 budget expected to be unveiled on Thursday. The statute is to be presented to the municipal assembly session scheduled to convene in early March.
The measure will be legally non-binding and comes from one of the most youth-oriented areas of Japan. It will certainly be resisted by conservative elements and the standard marriage-lite arguments are being put forth:
A ward official said of the certificate plan, “We consider it a completely separate system” from marriage.
The situation is complicated in Japan in that the country's constitution explicitly recognizes marriage as a relationship involving "both sexes".
This provision was originally forced on the country by the United States Occupation to prevent women and girls from being forced into marriages against their will. In other words, it was a progressive measure which now stands in the way of progress. Given the difficulty of amending the constitution and the reluctance of Japanese progressives to allow any tinkering with the charter at all for fear that it will lead to the elimination of the war-renouncing Article IX, marriage equality still faces a decidedly uphill battle in Japan.
Nevertheless, progress is progress.