Japan Slowly Turns their Attention to Gay Japanese

                                                                           

 Openly Gay Japanese Porn Star

TOKYO—To get a local council here to grant symbolic recognition to same-sex couples, the main pitch wasn’t about civil rights but about sharpening the ward’s cutting-edge image at home and abroad.

“We need to be on par with London, New York and San Francisco as a cultural center,” said Ken Hasebe, who pushed the issue for three years as an assembly member in Tokyo’s Shibuya district.

His success this spring in passing the ordinance—the first of its kind in Japan—illustrates how changes under way in the West are having ripple effects elsewhere, even in deeply conservative countries like Japan.

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 Marriage is governed at the national level here and there is no push under way in parliament or the courts to extend it to same-sex couples—much less a national referendum as was held last month in Ireland.

Ken Hasebe, who pushed Shibuya ward to recognize same-sex unions, talks to residents during a cherry blossom party. He was elected ward mayor in late April. PHOTO: OFFICE OF KEN HASEBE

The certificates of recognition that Shibuya will start issuing soon could, for example, allow gay couples to qualify for local, family-only public housing, but otherwise carry little weight.

Many activists see the ordinance as a monumental step, however, because it has helped ignite a public discussion about long-ignored issues such as antigay discrimination.

“Any form of official recognition is a step in the right direction,” said Ken Suzuki, a gay activist and professor at Tokyo’s Meiji University.

Three other municipalities in Japan are already considering recognizing same-sex partnerships. A national survey by the conservative Sankei Shimbun daily and FNN television network in March showed that 54% supported same-sex marriage, while 37% were opposed.

“Before, I didn’t know if same-sex marriages would be legalized in my lifetime,” said Ryosuke Nanasaki, a 27-year-old wedding planner who symbolically married his partner seven years ago. Now he is hoping for a boost for his business.

Mr. Hasebe, who previously worked in advertising, said he avoided painting same-sex partnerships as a human-rights issue to appeal to a wider audience and avoid arguments with conservative assembly members.

“I told them, only we, Shibuya, could be so bold and diverse,” the 43-year-old said in an interview. The ward, with about 200,000 residents, is known for its street fashion and youth culture, but isn’t considered a particularly gay area.

Not only did the strategy work in the assembly, but Mr. Hasebe also pulled off a surprise win in April’s elections for ward mayor, beating a candidate from an established party who wanted to roll back the same-sex recognition. 

Akie Abe, the wife of conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is also known as a supporter of lesbian and gay rights, even publicly joining Tokyo’s Rainbow Week parade last year—a first for a Japanese first lady. 

“I think that people should be much more open about those issues,” Mrs. Abe said in an interview. “I have realized that there are a surprising number of [gay] people around me.”

Still, as Japan’s political culture dictates, she hasn’t played a very active role publicly. She didn’t go to this year’s gay pride parade, held on the day she and her husband left for an official visit to the U.S. 

On April 1, a day after Shibuya’s ordinance passed, Mr. Abe was asked in parliament by an opposition lawmaker whether same-sex marriage should be legalized.

“The Constitution specifies marriage as based ‘only on the mutual consent of both sexes,’ ” he replied. “It is an issue that requires cautious debate.”

Toshiharu Furukawa, the head of the special committee on family values of Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, is a strong opponent of gay marriage. He has called homosexuality “a type of mental abnormality, which shouldn’t be institutionally and systemically acknowledged.”

About 30 national lawmakers formed a cross-party caucus in March to examine issues such as antigay discrimination, spurred by the Shibuya debate as well as a recognition of the international scrutiny that the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo will bring.

Some Western leaders skipped last year’s Sochi Winter Games amid protests over an antigay law in Russia. 

Kazuyuki Minami, a lawyer specializing in gay rights, says that change in traditional views on family has been slow in Japan. Women’s rights groups have been fighting for three decades to change a law that forbids women from keeping their maiden name after marriage, he noted.

The leader of the new parliamentary caucus, LDP lawmaker Hiroshi Hase, has said it isn’t planning any legislation. 

Write to Toko Sekiguchi at toko.sekiguchi@wsj.com