Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the Unification Church’s movement opposing LGBTQ+ rights and promoting "family education". Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the influence of the Church on Japanese politics and its implications for policies on gender, sexuality, and family will be investigated.

Paper long abstract:

The assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in July 2022, and media reports that the suspect’s motivations were his grudge against the Unification Church and Abe’s connection with it, have led to extensive coverage in the Japanese media on the connections between the Unification Church and politics. In particular, ties between the Church and politicians, especially those of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, have been under intense scrutiny. In this context, the Church’s possible influences on national and local policies have started to gain attention, and the ways that issues of gender, sexuality and family have emerged as crucial for the Church in the past two decades.

As the Unification Church’s anti-communism agenda lost its urgency with the end of the Cold War, the Church shifted its core political agenda to the promotion of family values and opposition to gender equality and diverse sexuality. In the early 2000s, along with other religious organizations affiliated with Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference) and right-wing politicians, including Abe Shinzo, the Church became the leader of an anti-feminism backlash, spearheading the movement against gender equality ordinances and sex education. From the mid-2010s, the Church’s attack on LGBTQ+ rights became more extensive as it led the movement opposing same-sex partnership and marriage. The Church also started to promote “family education” (katei kyōiku) by supporting the movement to pass laws and municipal ordinances to educate people to be “good parents.” The Church’s beliefs in “sexual purity” and traditional family values match well with the LDP’s policy goals of promoting abstinence-only sex education and enshrining the family as the fundamental unit of society.

Based on my ethnographic fieldwork with members of the Unification Church and other conservatives, as well as those who have fought against them, I will discuss the Unification Church’s movement opposing LGBTQ+ rights and promoting “family education.” I intend to demonstrate how the influence of the Unification Church on Japanese politics has had important implications for Japan’s policies on gender, sexuality and family, and how the Church has been collaborating with other conservative groups and politicians in these efforts.