These 5 Asian countries are ready for same-sex marriage right now

While Taiwan and Nepal recognize same-sex marriages, polling shows that five other Asian nations (plus Hong Kong) are ready to allow queer couples to tie the knot. Thailand’s cabinet recently approved a bill that would legalize same-sex weddings. 

While local governments have been slow to act, residents support equality, according to Pew Research Center polling.

Related: Nepal registers its historic first same-sex marriage

It is the first South Asian country to recognize a same-sex marriage.

Competing judicial decisions in Japan have put pressure on the Japanese parliament, the National Diet, to legalize same-sex marriage. The body was expected to pass a comprehensive LGBTQ+ rights bill before the 2021 Olympics, but the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), a conservative political party in control of both chambers of the legislature, refused to pass the legislation, saying it went “too far.”

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Citizens, however, would welcome the change. Sixty-eight percent of Japanese people support same-sex marriage, while only 26 percent oppose it.

Vietnam, where same-sex marriage is technically legal but not recognized by the government, is also highly supportive. A third of residents support marriage equality, and only 30 percent oppose it.

Thai citizens also broadly support marriage equality and the government’s pressure to legalize it. Sixty percent support it, while 32 percent oppose it.

Cambodia and India also have majority support for same-sex marriage, as does Chinese-held Hong Kong. Taiwan already allows same-sex marriages, and residents support the decision.

India has had a push-and-pull relationship with same-sex marriage. The country’s supreme court ruled against marriage equality earlier this year, saying it was up to India’s Parliament to enact it via legislation.

Many activists had hoped that the Indian Supreme Court would rule in their favor. In 2018, the court made history when it ruled that homosexuality would no longer be considered a criminal offense. The unanimous decision went beyond ending the country’s sodomy ban.

“Any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates fundamental rights,” wrote then-Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

“Social morality cannot be used to violate the fundamental rights of even a single individual,” he continued. “Constitutional morality cannot be martyred at the altar of social morality.”

But the court said that the ruling does not necessarily extend to matters like marriage.

Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia, countries with a large population of conservative Muslims, rank at the bottom of the listing.

Only five percent of Indonesians support marriage equality. The country is considered one of the worst in the world for LGBTQ+ rights. Conservative Muslims turned out in the hundreds to protest a Coldplay concert last month over the band’s support for the LGBTQ+ community.

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