{"id":15786,"date":"2020-10-14T10:29:25","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T10:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/?p=15786"},"modified":"2020-10-15T09:41:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T09:41:55","slug":"japanese-politician-fears-population-extinction-because-of-queers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/japanese-politician-fears-population-extinction-because-of-queers\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese politician fears population extinction because of queers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A member of parliament from a district in northern Tokyo came under fire because he said his district would &#8220;perish&#8221; if sexual minority rights were protected by law.<\/p>\n<p>Japan&#8217;s birth rates are falling: In 2019 the birth rate per woman was 1.36 (compared to 1.54 children per woman in Germany). This is the sharpest decline in three decades and the lowest figure since 1899.<\/p>\n<p>For a local politician of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), sexual minorities are indirectly responsible for this. The rights of LGBTIQ* people should not be protected because they cause poor birth rates, Masateru Shiraishi, chairman of the Welfare Committee of the Adachi-ku District Assembly, a community in the northern part of Tokyo, said on 25 September at the Welfare Committee&#8217;s plenary meeting.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-wrap\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u3010\u8db3\u7acb\u533a\u8b70\u4f1a \u7b2c3\u56de\u5b9a\u4f8b\u4f1a(2\u65e5\u76ee) 2020\u5e749\u670825\u65e5\u5348\u5f8c1\u6642\u3011<br \/>\u203b\u4e00\u822c\u8cea\u554f <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/%E7%99%BD%E7%9F%B3%E6%AD%A3%E8%BC%9D?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#\u767d\u77f3\u6b63\u8f1d<\/a> (\u81ea\u7531\u6c11\u4e3b\u515a)<\/p>\n<p>\u30fbB\u3068T\u306f\u4ed5\u65b9\u306a\u3044<br \/>\u30fb\u5b50\u5b6b\u7e41\u6804\u3092\u57fa\u672c\u306b\u8003\u3048\u308b\u3079\u304d<br \/>\u30fb\u5168\u54e1L\u3084G\u306b\u306a\u3063\u305f\u3089\u8db3\u7acb\u533a\u306f\u6ec5\u3076<\/p>\n<p>\u8511\u79f0\u3092\u4f7f\u3044\u306a\u304c\u3089\u540c\u6027\u611b\u8005\u3092\u6d41\u884c\u308a\u75c5\u6271\u3044\u3002<br \/>\u3042\u308b\u610f\u5473\u3001\u6749\u7530\u6c34\u8108\u3088\u308a\u3072\u3069\u3044(\u95b2\u89a7\u8d85\u6ce8\u610f)\u3002 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mk0Xsfdr9a\">pic.twitter.com\/mk0Xsfdr9a<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; \u30b7\u30b2 (@monadpride) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/monadpride\/status\/1312082542204342272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 2, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;If all Japanese women were lesbian or all Japanese men gay, do you think the next generation of people will be born? We wouldn&#8217;t have any more inhabitants because that means there will be no more children.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to the Japan Times, his remark came as members of the Welfare Committee were discussing how to teach children at school about the birth and upbringing of children.<\/p>\n<p>When asked, Shiraishi told the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun that he had &#8220;no intention of interfering in the life of anyone who is lesbian or gay&#8221;, but added nevertheless: &#8220;Marriage, having children and raising them in a normal way is very important for people. It is crucial, the 78-year-old said, to give the &#8216;right&#8217; views to pupils in schools, because<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;when LGBT people are put in the spotlight in an excessive way, children will in future lose the sense of birth and education of their children&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Another LDP member, Mio Sugita, had offended the queer community two years ago with a similar statement. As the news magazine Sumikai reported, Sugita had described same-sex couples in an article in a magazine as unproductive for society because they cannot have children. Therefore, according to Sugita, these couples do not deserve public support.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Wave of protest and disciplinary measures<\/h2>\n<p>Shiraishi&#8217;s remarks triggered a public wave of protest in Japan. Yuichi Kamiya, Secretary General of a Tokyo LGBTIQ* legal association working for a legal ban on discrimination against sexual minorities in Japan, replied that anti-discrimination laws for queers had also been passed in European Union member states, which had had no effect on birth rates. &#8220;The LGBT population is not increasing or decreasing because of education,&#8221; Kamiya said. He called on Shiraishi to correct his comment. He said it was extremely problematic for someone in the public sector to have such views.<\/p>\n<p>Even Shiraishi&#8217;s party, the LDP, thinks so, too. Tadashi Kaneda, secretary-general of the LDP faction in Adachi, said his colleague&#8217;s remarks were &#8220;exaggerated&#8221; and could lead to misunderstandings. The party is now discussing whether to take disciplinary measures against Shiraishi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A member of parliament from a district in northern Tokyo came under fire because he said his district would &#8220;perish&#8221; if sexual minority rights were protected by law. <a href=\"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/japanese-politician-fears-population-extinction-because-of-queers\/\"><\/p>\n<p><i class=\"showAllLink\">more&#8230;<\/i><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":15790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15786"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15884,"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15786\/revisions\/15884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}