An aide to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida who said he wouldn’t want to live next to LGBTQ+ couples, and warned people would flee Japan if same-sex marriage was permitted, has been fired.
Key points:
- Aide Masayoshi Arai made several discriminatory remarks, which he later retracted and apologised for
- Japanese PM Fumio Kishida recently said same-sex marriage could impact the family structure
- His public support has halved to around 30 per cent after a series of scandals
In remarks reported by local media, Masayoshi Arai, an economy and trade official who joined Mr Kishida’s staff as a secretary in October, added he did not even want to look at same-sex couples.
“His comments are outrageous and completely incompatible with the administration’s policies,” Mr Kishida said in remarks aired by public broadcaster NHK.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday local time, the Japanese leader said he had dismissed Mr Arai, who had earlier apologised for “misleading” comments made on Friday.
Mr Arai’s comments came after Mr Kishida had told parliament that same-sex marriage needed careful consideration because of its potential impact on the family structure.
The incident has proven an embarrassment for Mr Kishida, who has been preparing to host other leaders from Group of Seven (G7) nations in May.
Unlike Japan, which has been ruled by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for most of the past seven decades, the rest of the G7 allow marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples.
Opinion poll slump
According to recent opinion polls, Mr Kishida’s public support has halved to around 30 per cent since last year following a series of scandal-tainted resignations by senior officials.
Among those who stepped down was Mio Sugita, an internal affairs and communications vice minister, who quit in December over controversial comments about LGBTQ+ people, and about Japan’s indigenous Ainu community.
In a survey published by NHK in July 2021, two months before Kishida became prime minister, 57 per cent of 1,508 respondents said they supported the legal recognition of same-sex unions.
Because they are not allowed to marry, same-sex couples cannot inherit each other’s assets and are denied parental rights to each other’s children.
In November, a Tokyo court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage, but also said a lack of legal protection for same-sex families violated their human rights.
Reuters