When Religion Is Not Enough: Institutional Opportunities, Political Contestation, and Same-Sex Marriage in East Asia

Over the last decade, same-sex marriage has gained momentum across East Asian societies. Despite growing public support for LGBTQ rights, countries in the region have produced divergent policy outcomes. While in some countries, public authorities have introduced legal recognition for same-sex couples, in others, political elites, populist actors, and religious organizations have been successful in opposing LGBTQ rights. Current scholarship on the politics of morality issues has emphasized the role of religion, particularly Catholicism, in Western countries, as a key factor shaping agenda-setting, legislative patterns, and policy outcomes. Religiosity, state-church relations, and the presence of a religious cleavage within national party systems are often cited as crucial explanatory variables for legislative developments in value-laden issues. However, focusing exclusively on societal religiosity and religious cleavages is insufficient to account for the diverse policy trajectories on same-sex marriage, particularly in countries without a religious cleavage. Moreover, much of the existing literature relies on Western cases, limiting generalizability to non-Western contexts. This paper studies the contrasting policy processes and outcomes on same-sex marriage in Japan and Taiwan, two countries that lack a religious cleavage in national party systems. Japan, a highly secularized society, lacks comprehensive national legislation to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and remains a laggard in promoting gender equality, despite recent court rulings urging recognition of same-sex couples. In contrast, Taiwan, which is less secularized, has implemented progressive measures to extend civil rights to LGBTQ individuals and couples, including same-sex marriage in 2015, making it a regional frontrunner in LGBTQ rights. These contrasting cases highlight that religion alone cannot explain policy developments and underscore the importance of considering broader institutional and political contexts. This paper compares the political debate and policy processes on same-sex marriage in Japan and Taiwan. It draws on interviews with political actors and LGBTQ activists, alongside a content analysis of policy documents, court rulings, and media reports. The resulting analysis argues that diverging policy patterns are shaped by institutional opportunities that influence the interactions among religious lobbies, political elites, and populist actors presenting themselves as defenders of traditional family norms and civilizational values. These dynamics reveal mechanisms that cannot be captured solely by measures of religiosity and party-system cleavages and show how sexual politics is a field of democratic contestation under pressure from political actors advancing exclusionary values and populist claims. The paper makes two main contributions. Theoretically, it tests, expands, and proposes revisions of Western frameworks explaining the influence of religion on LGBTQ politics, emphasizing the role of institutional structures and strategic political actors. Empirically, it highlights how religious lobbies and homo-nationalistic stances promoted by political entrepreneurs affect policy debates, delay reforms, and shape public discourse on LGBTQ rights, sometimes reinforcing exclusionary narratives and gender-discriminatory policy arrangements. By incorporating updated data, this study highlights the complex interactions between religiosity and political institutional factors in non-Western contexts, providing a nuanced explanation of same-sex marriage policy dynamics in East Asia.