13 same-sex couples sue Japan for marriage equality

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't think this is a sound reading of the relevant parts of the Japanese Constitution, and the Supreme Court of Japan is if anything even more of an authoritarian bastion than the Diet, but here's hoping this suit leads to an improvement in the legal status of Japanese same-sex couples anyway.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Young Japanese people do tend to vote well to the right of older people (much to my and many other onlookers' chagrin), which is part of why Abe is lowering the age of majority from 20 to 18, but the vast majority of this is because of muh nationalism and because of the perception that Abe's regime is actually interested in contemplating a Japanese future rather than just running maintenance on the once very successful but now floundering postwar way of doing things. They're not Buddhist or Shintoist answers to ExtremeConservative or the Covington kids.

I agree that Western liberals making LGBT rights a "civilizational" or ~cosmopolitan values~ thing (as opposed to a human rights thing, which isn't the same thing) has contributed to disastrous outcomes for LGBT people's safety in much of the non-Western world, but I'm not convinced the worst outcomes are nearly as much of a danger in East Asia as they are in Africa and the regions around the Indian Ocean.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Japan doesn't frown upon LGBT people because "OHMYGOD YOU SODOMITE YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL!" but because they are viewed, on some level, as being self-indulgent and undutiful.

Yep, this about covers it. In my own experience, I've never talked to a Japanese person who got as virulently hateful towards LGBT people as conservative Christians or conservative Muslims can get, but I've known more Japanese people who got exasperated or dismissive when LGBT issues were brought up than who didn't.