Photo/Illutration Plaintiffs head to the Osaka High Court in Osaka’s Kita Ward on March 25. (Takuya Tanabe)

OSAKA—Presiding Judge Kumiko Honda of the Osaka High Court here ruled in favor of LGBT plaintiffs on March 25 over the unconstitutionality of Japan's same-sex marriage ban. 

Three same-sex couples living in Kyoto, Kagawa and other prefectures initially filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government seeking a total of 6 million yen ($39,900) in compensation. 

The high court's decision strikes down the Osaka District Court's prior upholding of the Civil Law and Family Register Law's provisions that limit marriage to heterosexual couples. However, Honda dismissed the appeal for compensation. 

Although it is the fifth high court to condemn the ban, the Osaka High Court's ruling has attracted attention as it is the only instance of overturning a district court's decision of the six similar lawsuits filed at five district courts nationwide.

Sapporo, Tokyo, Fukuoka and Nagoya's high courts previously handed down rulings on the issue.

The Osaka District Court had ruled that although "it is possible the provisions of the laws banning same-sex marriage may become unconstitutional in the future," it is reasonable to limit marriage to heterosexual couples.

It believed it would protect the relationships of men and women who bring children into the world and raise them. 

The district court also pointed out that there are existing systems meant to reduce the disparities between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and straight couples, such as partnership systems which municipalities can choose to offer.

It then concluded that the law provisions could not be immediately determined unconstitutional. 

Plaintiffs hit back at the district court's interpretation of the law when the case moved onto the Osaka High Court, saying, “There are heterosexual couples who don’t intend to have children.”

They also said these partnership systems are limited in their effectiveness and perpetuate the discrimination of sexual minorities.

The plaintiffs claimed, “What should be questioned is the rationality in excluding same-sex couples from the marriage system" and why this is still the status quo.

Legalizing gay marriage would make more people happy while it would make no one unhappy, the plaintiffs said.

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