'I'm an American in Japan, I'm Not Allowed To Get Married'
newsweek.comsurvey by NHK. Our own neighbors where we live have always been open and welcoming, too.Yet Machi and I still don't have the right to get married in Japan.
We got married in Oregon in 2015, even though we knew that the marriage certificate would have no standing in Japan. We loved being able to celebrate our relationship with our friends and family.Same-sex marriage is not legal in Japan.
However, we decided to give it a try in 2019. We submitted the paperwork to the local Kyoto authorities but were told we could not get married because we are two females, so they could not legally accept our application.We saw it coming but to have that in writing made us see the reality that, no matter how hard we try, we can't be on an equal level with heterosexual couples.
It forced me to look that inequality in the face.It seemed like a lawsuit was the only way to get things moving so, in 2019, we joined two other couples in filing a case at a district court in Osaka, trying to prove that the rejection of our marriages was unconstitutional.It felt pretty awful when the verdict came in last month, in June 2022.
