Photo/Illutration Plaintiffs and their supporters on Nov. 30 celebrate the Tokyo District Court ruling, which, in part, said the lack of a legal system that recognizes same-sex couples as a family is in a state of unconstitutionality. (Tetsuro Takehana)

More supporters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are in favor of allowing married couples to have separate surnames and legalizing same-sex marriages, a recent survey showed.

Sixty percent of all respondents supported allowing dual surnames and 50 percent were in favor of same-sex marriages.

The results mirror sentiment among the Japanese public, which has generally shown increasing support for both social issues.

However, another survey found that among LDP candidates in the 2022 Upper House election, more opposed such policies than supported them.

The latest survey highlighted a gap in views on these issues between voters and LDP candidates.

The joint survey was conducted by The Asahi Shimbun and a team led by Masaki Taniguchi, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo, between February and April.

“More voters, including LDP supporters, back both the dual-surname system and same-sex marriages than those who oppose them," Taniguchi said. "In contrast, although an increasing number of LDP Diet members are supporting these ideas, more of them still opposed them.

"In particular, more conservative-leaning lawmakers within the party are persistently against these notions.”

Survey questionnaires were sent on Feb. 28 to 3,000 randomly selected eligible voters across Japan. Sixty-six percent, or 1,967 of them, replied by April 11.

Respondents were asked to choose from five answers on whether they support giving married couples the option to have separate surnames.

Sixty percent of respondents backed the idea by choosing either “support” or “rather support” it, much more than 13 percent who opposed the notion.

Even among LDP supporters, 53 percent were in favor of the dual-surname system, while only 17 percent of them were opposed.

Thirty percent of LDP supporters remained neutral by choosing “cannot say” whether they support allowing married couples to have different surnames.

Support for the dual-surname system among LDP supporters has increased over the years. In a 2014 survey, 36 percent of LDP supporters were in favor of it.

The figure fell to 33 percent in a 2017 survey before reaching 54 percent in the 2020 and 2022 surveys.

That means that more than half of LDP supporters have backed the idea for three consecutive surveys.

It indicates that supporters of the system are becoming the majority among LDP backers.

More people also supported same-sex marriages than those who didn’t, the survey found.

Fifty percent of all respondents backed the legalization of same-sex marriages, while 31 percent were neutral and 19 percent opposed them.

More LDP backers, or 40 percent, were in favor of same-sex marriages, while 24 percent were not.

However, 36 percent of LDP supporters, more than the 32 percent in the previous survey in 2022, chose the “cannot say” answer, reflecting their mixed feelings on the issue.

LDP election candidates hold contrasting views with those of voters about these topics.

The survey conducted prior to the 2022 Upper House election found that more LDP candidates, or 34 percent, opposed allowing married couples to have separate surnames, than the 24 percent who supported it.

Among the nine major political parties, the LDP was the only party whose candidates expressed more opposition to the idea than supported it.

In addition, only 14 percent of LDP candidates were in favor of same-sex marriages, while 30 percent of them were opposed.

The analysis of the survey results was conducted by Taniguchi and his team members who are Shusuke Takamiya, a researcher, Shoko Omori, a lecturer at Hosei University, and Takaaki Asano, an assistant professor at Kansai University, as well as Shohei Sasagawa and Yoshitaka Isobe from The Asahi Shimbun.

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