TOKYO: United States Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said on Wednesday he had 'full confidence' that the Japanese government would take the necessary steps to ban discrimination against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community.

LGBTQ people have been campaigning for the government to adopt an anti-discrimination law after Masayoshi Arai, an aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, told reporters he wouldn't want to live next to them and that citizens would flee Japan if same-sex marriages were allowed. Kishida quickly fired him afterward.