Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida apologizes Feb. 6 for a key aide’s anti-LGBTQ remarks. He issued the apology from the prime minister’s office. (Koichi Ueda)

Even as the prime minister offered an apology for discriminatory remarks against sexual minorities by a key aide he was forced to sack, Fumio Kishida was unable to quell a growing uproar in the LGBTQ community.

Gay activists demanded the government legalize same-sex marriage, an issue that Kishida has shied away from, and presented him Feb. 6 with a written request for laws to protect the human rights of sexual minorities.

“I express my remorse for people who felt uncomfortable by (the remarks),” Kishida said Feb. 6 after he met with government and ruling party leaders to contain growing fallout from the remarks uttered Feb. 3 by Masayoshi Arai.

In his Feb. 6 apology, Kishida pledged to “carefully explain” the government’s policy on respecting diversity to realize an inclusive society.

During a Lower House Budget Committee meeting, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said Arai’s remarks amounted to “blatant discrimination.”

He thundered that the remarks were sharply at odds with the government’s fundamental policy on the issue. He called them “egregious and deplorable.”

Toshimitsu Motegi, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said at a news conference the party “will proceed with its preparations to submit a bill to promote public awareness” on LGBTQ issues.

But apologies are unlikely to quell the LGBTQ community’s anger as the remarks were uttered by a senior official who served as a speechwriter for the prime minister.

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Members of Marriage for All Japan visit the prime minister’s office Feb. 6 to submit a request to legalize same-sex marriage and protect the human rights of sexual minorities. (Provided by Marriage for All Japan)

Leaders of Marriage for All Japan, a public interest incorporated association working to legalize same-sex marriage, visited the prime minister’s office to submit a written request to Kishida that condemned Arai’s remarks for “denying the existence of sexual minorities.”

The group also demanded the government legalize same-sex marriage.

Soshi Matsuoka who heads Fair, an organization that disseminates information about sexual minorities, worked with other activists to mount an online petition on the evening of Feb. 5, demanding laws to protect the human rights of gay people.

It had been signed by nearly 40,000 people as of 5 p.m. on Feb. 7.

The petition labeled Arai’s remarks as “inexcusable discriminatory.”

If the public allows Kishida and his minders to “draw the curtain on the issue by the removal of Arai only, the same kind of discrimination will surely be repeated in the future,” the petition said.

(This article was compiled from reports by Yoshitaka Isobe, Yuta Kayaba and Midori Iki.)

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