Signatures Seeking Marriage Equality Handed to Japan Top Court

Tokyo, June 8 (Jiji Press)–Plaintiffs in same-sex marriage lawsuits across Japan handed about 36,000 online signatures seeking equality of marriage to the Supreme Court on Monday. They also called for the top court’s unconstitutional ruling for Civil Code and family register law clauses that only allow opposite-sex marriage. The signatures were submitted, after five high courts ruled those clauses unconstitutional and one court constitutional while all the courts rejected state compensation claims. The plaintiffs have brought the cases to the Supreme Court, whose Grand Bench is expected to issue its first unified ruling as early as next year. “I’d like Supreme Court justices to imagine their own parents or children wishing to marry someone of the same sex when they write the ruling,” Kozo, a 43-year-old plaintiff from Kumamoto, told a press conference in Tokyo. “I hope they deliver an unequivocal unconstitutional ruling that enables people to share the joy of seeing ‘society moving forward,'” Eri Nakatani, a 34-year-old Sapporo plaintiff, said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]