For millions of Japanese, the Shinto faith is not so much a spiritual practice as a cultural one. Every January, people gather at shrines to pray for good fortune for the new year. Families bring their children to celebrate rites of passage, and many seek blessings for luck in romance, school entrance exams or job interviews.
Few consider these rituals to be tied to any specific doctrine – Shintoism, an indigenous religion, has no official dogma or scriptures. But unbeknownst to most of secular Japan, a national Shinto association is trying to spread a conservative ideological message to lawmakers, including gay and transgender rights.
Japan is the only country in the Group of 7 that has not legalized same-sex unions, and foreign ambassadors pushing the country to support equality more strongly in the run-up to a summit in Hiroshima starting later this week. Polls show overwhelming support for same-sex marriage in Japan; One of the country’s most influential business leaders recently called it “shameful” that Japan does not allow unions.
Lawmakers, under pressure from Shinto groups and other traditional forces, have backed away from public opinion, struggling to agree on even limited expressions of support for gay and transgender rights.
Last summer, the Shinto organization distributed a 94-page pamphlet at a large meeting for fellow members of Parliament, mostly from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which included a transcript of a lecture describing homosexuality as “an acquired mental disorder, an addiction” that can be cured by “restorative therapy.”
Another transcribed lecture opposed the passage of the LGBTQ rights bill, claiming “there is no systematic discrimination” in Japan and warning that “left-wing activists will use it as their weapon” and that there would be an “explosion of cases.”
This week, a Liberal Democratic parliamentary committee approved a thinly worded bill that says “there should be no unfair discrimination” against LGBTQ people. Activists and opposition party leaders say the bill, which could come before the full Parliament as the G7 meets, is weaker than one that failed two years ago.
Scholars say the behind-the-scenes efforts of the Shinto group — the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership, the political arm of an organization that oversees 80,000 shrines — is one reason for the disconnect between the more wider society and the political sphere.
Many shrine workers and visitors are not necessarily aware of, or agree with, the Shinto association’s efforts to influence government policy.
But conservatives in the ruling party “really rely on the religious right for their election campaigns,” said Kazuyoshi Kawasaka, a lecturer in modern Japanese studies at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. The influence of those groups is “more important than the public support of 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 documents on its own website that describe calls “for an extreme protection of rights” or for the legalization of same-sex marriage as “movements to dismantle the structure in the family.”
During an interview with foreign media last month, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida explained why Japan has not yet legalized same-sex marriage. “The environment in each country is different,” he said in a prepared answer to a question from The New York Times. “Careful, thorough discussion is needed.”
The influence of the religious right on Japan’s conservative politicians remained largely hidden until the assassination last year of Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who was shot by a man who hated the Unification Church, the fringe religious movement.
After Mr. Abe’s death, the Japanese media discovered connections between the church and more than 100 members of Parliament, including the former prime minister, most of them in the ruling party.
Members of the Unification Church are also campaigning against gay and transgender rights in Japan. An editorial in the World Daily, a church-affiliated newspaper, recently stated that the current LGBTQ bill “may cause crime” and that “trans women may invade women’s spaces.”
A political sister organization of the Unification Church said it has not lobbied lawmakers about “especially the LGBT bill” but it believes the bill “has not been fully discussed and is premature.”
While the Unification Church has come under intense scrutiny after Mr. Abe’s death, the Shinto association has mostly operated under the media’s radar, seeking to influence lawmakers on other long-standing social issues.
This pushed conservatives to preserve a law that obliges married couples to choose a surname and to bar female heirs from ascending the imperial throne.
As more cities in Japan offer same-sex partnerships and gay couples bring lawsuits calling the country’s failure to recognize same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the Shinto association began 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 the way the shrine group has inserted itself into the current debate. “I think they are a very deep step in policy,” said Mr. Iwaya, a Liberal Democrat.
Passing the current bill would require more moderate Liberal Democrats to spend significant political capital, some of which have faced fierce criticism.
“Every day I get calls asking me to oppose the bill, and the phone won’t stop ringing,” said Tomomi Inada, a former defense minister and Liberal Democratic lawmaker who sponsored the bill two years ago. years ago. “There is a lot of pressure. People are trying to harm my chances of re-election.”
Foreign ambassadors, led by the US envoy, Rahm Emanuel, spoke in support of the current LGBTQ bill, as well as same-sex marriage, while pointing to Japanese public support.
“There are right-wing efforts that are pretty entrenched, and in my own view they kind of punch above their weight class,” Mr. Emanuel. “You don’t get to 70 percent” support in public polls “without some element of self-identified conservative voters saying we are for same-sex marriage.”
But political apathy makes it difficult for gay and transgender advocates to recruit allies.
Voters think “nothing will change, so they are not interested in politics,” said Gon Matsunaka, director of Marriage for All Japan, an advocacy group.
Business leaders argue that Japan needs to coordinate with its international peers to recruit workers from abroad and keep the economy afloat.
“Japan insists that we must be equal,” said Takeshi Niinami, chief executive of Suntory, the beverage maker, and chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives. “But now corporations are increasingly globalizing.”
Although many companies offer the same benefits to same-sex couples, few employees take advantage of them. Patrick Jordan, vice president of human resources at Coca-Cola Japan, said that he knows only one Japanese employee in the office of about 600 people who is gay.
Intolerance of gay relationships or transgender identity in Japan is relatively modern.
During the Tokugawa period, which lasted from the 17th to the mid-19th century, male samurai often engaged in same-sex partnerships, says Gary Leupp, author of “Colors of Men : The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan.”
Japan stopped criminalizing gay sex before many Western countries. Kabuki and Takarazuka theater traditions embrace fluid gender identities, and gay and transgender performers are frequently seen on television. There is a thriving gay and transgender nightlife in Tokyo.
Yet gay and transgender people say they continue to live secret lives. Kohei Katsuyama, who lives in Tokyo, quit the police force because he was afraid of the repercussions if he told his colleagues about his sexuality.
“I thought that if I came out and people found out, it would be game over,” said Mr. Katsuyama, who isolated himself from his family because he believed they would not accept that he was living with a male partner. “And I think a lot of people think this way too.”
