Over 5,000 people protested the controversial politician’s comments last week | Photo: Twitter / @Mae_To_Ushiro
Japan’s ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), have further distanced themselves from one of their MPs after she called the LGBTI community ‘unproductive’.
Mio Sugita also said that LGBTI people should not be permitted to receive welfare.
The LDP said that Sugita’s comments in a magazine article ‘show her lack of understanding of (LGBT) issues and consideration for the feelings of people involved,’ in a statement on their website.
The party also reiterated its support to create a society which is friendlier to sexual minorities, Kyodo News reported.
Protests over MP’s remarks
It is the latest development in what has become an ongoing saga surrounding the controversial lawmaker.
When asked to clarify her outspoken remarks in July, Sugita doubled down. She went on to say that preventing suicides in the LGBTI community was a ‘low priority’.
Later in the month, around 5,000 people assembled outside the LDP’s headquarters in Tokyo to protest Sugita over her remarks.
Five thousands protesters rally in Tokyo to demand resignation of Mio Sugita, a Japanese lawmaker of the ruling party, over her homophobic and eugenic comments 🌈 https://t.co/qfDP8m9jvz
— ファリード ヤス☪︎ (@Yasu9412) 27 July 2018
This is not the first time the embattled politician has courted controversy with anti-LGBTI sentiments.
In a talk-show interview in 2015 she said: ‘If we recognize different sexual orientations, that will lead to calls to allow marriage between siblings, marriage between parents and children, or even marriage to pets or machines.’
Same-sex marriage ‘like a hobby’ – Tom Tanigawa
Sugita is not the only LDP politician to have caused a stir due to comments regarding LGBTI rights recently.
Last month, a junior LDP lawmaker compared same-sex marriage was ‘like a hobby’ on an internet TV show.
The Japan Tims reported Lower House member Tom Tanigawa saying: ‘It’s not that I don’t approve of diversity and it’s fine if women like women and men like men. But it’s not necessary to legalize same-sex marriage. It’s like a hobby.’
