US envoy confident Japan will ban LGBTQ discrimination

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel says he has “full confidence” that the Japanese government will take the necessary steps to ban discrimination against LGBTQ people. LGBTQ people have been campaigning for the government to adopt an anti-discrimination law after an aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters he wouldn’t want to live next to LGBTQ people and that citizens would flee Japan if same-sex marriages were allowed. Kishida quickly fired the aide. Activists are urging the government to enact anti-discrimination legislation before Japan hosts a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations in May. Japan is the only G-7 member that has not recognized same-sex marriage or enacted an anti-discrimination law for LGBTQ people.