Mark your calendars for Japan same-sex marriage court dates
Australia, Bolivia promise LGBT rights laws
Japan: Marriage for All Japan has released a schedule of upcoming court hearings this month appealing past same-sex marriage decisions.
🌈Osaka High Court October 24th 11am
🌈Nagoya High Court October 27th 11:00am 1st appeal hearing
🌈Sapporo High Court Trial scheduled for October 31st at 3:30pm!
🌈Tokyo
First Litigation High Court October 31st 10:30
Second Litigation District Court November 30th 10:30 Interrogation!
🌈Fukuoka appeal next date undecided
As a reminder: Sapporo and Nagoya ruled the same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional; Tokyo and Fukuoka ruled that the ban may be constitutional but the government must provide some way for same-sex couples to have their relationship recognized. So far, only Osaka has upheld the ban on same-sex marriage completely.
Australia: Tasmania’s government is considering a hate crime law that would include motivation by the victim’s sexual orientation and gender identity as aggravating factors. LGBT activists are also calling on the state government to make good on its promise to introduce a conversion therapy ban, and expand the expungement regime for historically unjust convictions.
Most of Australia’s states have LGB-inclusive hate crime laws – the outliers are Western Australia, Queensland, and the Northern Territory. Western Australia. Only South Australia’s law currently includes gender identity.
Bolivia: The government has announced plans to introduce a bill to guarantee the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community in work, education, and health. Much will depend on what the actual content of the bill includes when it is tabled.
Kenya: An economist projects that the government risks up to $28 billion USD in development funding from the EU and USA if it goes ahead with a severe anti-LGBT law that has been proposed by a member of Parliament. To be clear, neither the EU, USA, or other international bodies have actually threatened to withdraw funding over this bill.
Meanwhile, in the States:
The US Supreme Court is set to decide whether it will hear a challenge to state-level conversion therapy bans. Most lower courts have rejected challenges to conversion therapy bans, but the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Florida, Georgia, and Alabama) did find them unconstitutional a few years ago, creating a circuit split.