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For millions of Japanese, the Shinto belief is not a spiritual practice but a cultural practice. Every January, many people gather at the temple to pray for good luck for the new year. Families take their children to celebrate the rite of passage, and many ask for blessings for luck in romance, school entrance exams or job interviews.
Some consider these rituals to be fixed doctrines – Shintoism, an indigenous religion, has no official dogmas or scriptures. But unknown to many in largely secular Japan, the national Shinto association has been trying to spread conservative ideological messages among lawmakers, including on gay and transgender rights.
Japan is the only country in the Group of 7 that has not ratified the same trade union, and foreign ambassador has pushed countries to support equality more forcefully in the run-up to the summit in Hiroshima starting later this week. Polls show overwhelming support for same-sex marriage in Japan; one of the most influential business leaders in the country recently called it a “shame” that Japan has not sanctioned trade unions.
Lawmakers, under pressure from Shinto groups and other traditionalist forces, have lagged behind public opinion, struggling to agree on limited expressions of support for gay and transgender rights.
Last summer, the Shinto organization distributed a 94-page pamphlet at a large meeting of affiliated parliamentarians, mostly from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which included a transcript of a lecture describing homosexuality as an “acquired mental disorder, an addiction” that could be cured by “restorative therapy .”
Another transcribed lecture opposed the LGBTQ rights bill, admitting that there is “no systemic discrimination” in Japan and warning that “left-wing activists will use this as a weapon” and there will be “lawsuits.”
This week, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary committee approved a simply-worded bill that states there is “no unfair discrimination” against LGBTQ people. Activists and opposition party leaders say the bill, which will come before the full Parliament when the G7 meets, is weaker than the one that failed two years ago.
Scholars say behind-the-scenes efforts by a Shinto group – the Shinto Spiritual Leadership Association, the political arm of an organization that oversees 80,000 shrines – is one reason for the disconnect between wider society and politics.
Many temple workers and visitors do not necessarily understand, or agree with, Shinto associations’ efforts to influence government policy.
But conservatives in the ruling party “rely on the religious right for election campaigns,” said Kazuyoshi Kawasaka, a professor of modern Japanese studies at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. The group’s influence is “more important than the public’s support for same-sex marriage,” Mr. Kawasaka said.
Naofumi Ogawa, a lawyer for the Shinto group, said in an email that the pamphlet “does not directly represent the views of the organization.”
But the group has posted a document on its own website describing calls “for excessive rights protection” or for the legalization of same-sex marriage as “a movement to dismantle the family structure.”
During an interview with foreign media last month, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida explained why Japan has yet to legalize same-sex marriage. “The situation around each country is different,” he said in a prepared answer to questions from The New York Times. “Careful negotiation, required.”
The influence of the religious right on conservative politicians in Japan remained largely hidden until last year’s assassination of Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who was shot dead by a man with a grudge against the Unification Church, a fringe religious movement.
After Mr. Abe’s death, Japanese media uncovered links between the church and more than 100 members of Parliament, including the former prime minister, most of whom are in the ruling party.
Affiliates of the Unification Church have also campaigned against gay and transgender rights in Japan. An editorial in the World Daily, a church-affiliated newspaper, recently declared that the current LGBTQ bill “could lead to crime” and “trans women could invade women’s space.”
The political sister organization of the Unification Church said it was not lobbying lawmakers on the “LGBT bill in particular” but believed the bill was “not yet discussed and premature.”
While the Unification Church came under intense scrutiny after Mr. Abe’s death, the Shinto association largely operated under the media radar, seeking to influence lawmakers on long-standing social issues.
It has pushed conservatives to maintain laws that require married couples to choose one name and bar female heirs from ascending to the imperial throne.
As an increasing number of municipalities in Japan have offered same-sex partnerships and gay couples have brought lawsuits calling the state’s failure to recognize same-sex marriages unconstitutional, Shinto associations have begun to “feel very threatened by this issue,” said Tomomi Yamaguchi. , a professor at Montana State University who studies gender and sexuality in Japan.
The sponsor of the LGBTQ bill, Takeshi Iwaya, said he is wary of how the temple group is entering the current debate. “I think they are moving too far into policy,” said Mr Iwaya, a Liberal Democrat.
Passing the bill now requires the more moderate Liberal Democrats to spend significant political capital, with some facing heavy criticism.
“Every day, I get calls telling me to oppose the bill, and the calls never stop,” said Tomomi Inada, a former defense minister and Liberal Democrat lawmaker who sponsored the bill two years ago. “There is a lot of pressure. People have tried to destroy his re-election chances.”
Foreign ambassadors, led by US envoy Rahm Emanuel, have spoken out in support of the current LGBTQ bill, as well as same-sex marriage, while pointing to the support of the Japanese public.
“There are right-wing efforts that are pretty entrenched, and in their own view they are kind of punching above their weight class,” Mr. Emanuel said. “You can’t get 70 percent” public polling support “without some element of self-identified conservative voters saying we should marry same-sex.”
But political apathy makes it difficult for gay and transgender advocates to recruit allies.
Voters think “nothing is going to change, so they’re not interested in politics,” said Gon Matsunaka, director of Marriage for All Japan, an advocacy group.
Business leaders say Japan needs to align with international peers to recruit workers from abroad and keep the economy afloat.
“Japan has insisted that we must be homogenous,” said Takeshi Niinami, chief executive of Suntory, the beverage maker, and chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives. “But now companies are more globalized.”
Although more companies offer the same benefits to same-sex couples, some employees take advantage of them. Patrick Jordan, vice president of human resources at Coca-Cola Japan, said he knew of only one Japanese employee in an office of close to 600 people who was gay.
Intolerance of gay relationships or transgender identity in Japan is relatively modern.
During the Tokugawa period, which lasted from the 17th century to the mid-19th century, samurai men regularly engaged in same-sex partnerships, said Gary Leupp, author of “Male Color: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan.”
Japan stopped criminalizing gay sex before many Western countries. Kabuki and Takarazuka theater traditions embody fluid gender identities, and gay and transgender performers appear regularly on television. There is a thriving gay and transgender nightlife scene in Tokyo.
But gay and transgender people say they continue to live hidden lives. Kohei Katsuyama, who lives in Tokyo, quit the police force because he feared the consequences if he told his friends about his sexuality.
“I thought if I come out and people know, it will be game over,” said Mr. Katsuyama, who has cut himself off from his family because he believes they will not accept living with a male partner. “And I think a lot of people still think that way.”
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