Japanese city amends pro-gay law - Reuters

Japanese city amends pro-gay law
2006/9/23
By Linda Sieg TOKYO, Reuters

A Japanese city amended a rare local law protecting homosexuals from discrimination Friday, despite protests from activists who said the law was being watered down.

The step coincides with efforts by conservative lawmakers, including the next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to revive respect for traditional family values they fear are being eroded in modern society.

The local legislature in Miyakonojo, a city of 171,000 on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu, voted in favor of a revision to a 2003 law that explicitly banned discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, a city official said.

The "Law for a Gender Equal Society" includes the sentence: "In a gender-equal society, human rights should be respected for all people regardless of gender or sexual orientation".

The new version deletes the reference to gender or sexual orientation.

A city official said the revision would not change the way the law is implemented. Officials said previously the amendment was intended to make the law easier to understand.

"The spirit of the law, its intention, remains although the phrase has been changed," said Meiko Kawasaki, in charge of gender equality affairs at city hall.

"There is no change in our policy," she said.

The international organization Human Rights Watch had written to Miyakonojo Mayor Makoto Nagamine, who introduced the amendment, protesting the change and urging the city to reconsider.

On Friday, Japan's first openly lesbian politician, Kanako Otsuji, expressed disappointment and anger.

"I really want to ask those who made this decision why they made it," said Otsuji, a local legislator in the western Japanese city of Osaka who had campaigned against the change.

"If this doesn't change anything, why did they have to amend it?" she said.

"We can only see this as homophobia," she said.