Anglicans go Galt over Gay bishops, marriage
After many years of tension within the global Anglican Communion, this decade's Lambert Conference showed that cracks in the church are widening over the issue of LGBTQ clergy members and same-sex marriage.

After married Gay and Lesbian bishops were invited to attend to the conference for the first time, the conservative leaders of Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda's Anglican communities refused to attend, going as far as planning a conference of their own for April in Kigali, Rwanda.

Other conservative provinces asked that the conference reaffirm a 1998 resolution against same-sex marriage, and that the progessive provinces — like the Episcopal Church of the United States, and the Anglican churches of Brazil, Canada, New England, Scotland — be marginalized.

The separate conference's agenda is expected to include criticisms of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is the ceremonial leader of the denomination. But Welby has said that neither he nor the Lambert Conference as a whole have the authority to somehow sanction the provinces or impose certain demands.

"They are not careless about scripture. They do not reject Christ," Welby said at Lambeth. "But they have come to a different view on sexuality after long prayer, deep study, and reflection on understandings of human nature."

Bishop Williams Aladekugbe of Nigeria's Ibadan North Anglican Diocese called same-sex unions "ungodly and devilish," and implied that a splintering from the greater Anglican Communion was likely unless something was done.

Tokyo court concedes need for same-sex protections
A Tokyo district court ruled on November 30 that the country's ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional, but it added that the absence of a legal structure to protect same-sex families did infringe on their human rights.

Nobuhito Sawasaki, one of the lawyers involved with the case, told Reuters with some reservation that the ruling was a good thing.

"While marriage remains between a man and a woman, and the ruling supported that, it also said that the current situation, with no legal protections for same-sex families, is not good, and suggested something must be done about it," he said.

The ban was taken to court elsewhere in Japan before. In 2021, it was ruled unconstitutional in Sapporo, but upheld in Osaka. Tokyo's ruling, coming from the capital, is likely to have the biggest impact.

"This is hard to accept," said activist Gon Matsunaka, head of Marriage for All Japan. But he also believed that the recognition of same-sex families human rights was a "big step."

Two other similar cases are pending in Japan. Activists and lawyers hope that enough local rulings in support of same-sex marriage will push lawmakers to change the system, even if it won't happen over night.