The government of Japan this week extended the application of nine laws related to spousal rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples, a significant, if limited, victory in the country’s slow march towards marriage equality.

The Japanese constitution currently defines marriage as “mutual consent between both sexes.” It does not recognize same-sex unions.

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Three of eight of Japan’s regional high courts in the last few years have ruled that the government’s failure to grant legal recognition to same-sex couples is unconstitutional.

In its Tuesday announcement, the government said it will consider same-sex couples to be in “de facto marriages” under the additional laws, including a Disaster Condolence Grant benefit.

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The decision follows one in January to extend 24 other laws to same-sex couples, including the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, the Land and House Lease Act, the Child Abuse Prevention Act, and the Public Housing Act.

In a regional high court decision on marriage equality issued in December, Judge Takeshi Okada ruled that civil laws forbidding same-sex marriage violate the nation’s constitution, writing, “There is no longer any reason to not legally recognize marriage between same-sex couples.”

Unlike in the U.S., Japan’s highest court lacks the power to grant the right to marriage equality, regardless of the lower courts’ rulings on its constitutionality. That decision is left to Japan’s National Diet, or legislature.

The Diet has yet to take up the question.

An Osaka district court judge ruled in 2022 that denying legal recognition to three same-sex couples “from the perspective of individual dignity” makes it “necessary to realize the benefits of same-sex couples being publicly recognized through official recognition.”

“Public debate,” however, “on what kind of system is appropriate for this has not been thoroughly carried out,” the judge wrote.

It’s a catch-22 that only the national legislature can resolve.

With the extension of laws in January, this week’s announcement indicates the coalition government, headed by Japan’s current Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, may be listening more closely to the public than previous governments dominated by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Approximately 70% of the Japanese public supports marriage equality.

Japan is the only one of the group of seven industrialized nations (G7) to not offer legal protections for same-sex unions. The other G7 nations are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Following December’s ruling on the marriage ban’s unconstitutionality, Prime Minister Ishiba expressed public sympathy for same-sex couples.

Marriage equality would “make the nation happier,” he said.

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