Japan rejects same-sex marriage to save itself from demographic collapse
Japan recently broke from its G7 siblings and upheld its ban on same-sex marriage.
The Tokyo court affirmed the nation's civil code limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. It was the first and only loss among six appeals brought by same-sex couples which had found parts of the current law unconstitutional. The recent decision creates a split the Supreme Court must now resolve.
Judge Ayumi Higashi validated the current legal definition of marriage, which presumes a male/female pairing and that a family is a couple and their children.
She rejected the claim that the ban on gay marriage violates Japan’s equality clause, holding that the distinctions between same-sex and opposite-sex couples do not amount to unconstitutional discrimination.
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In light of the demographic winter bearing down on every G7 nation, the Tokyo judge chose to protect and elevate the one relationship that has the potential to reverse it.
Ten years ago, when our high court was debating Obergefell vs. Hodges, very few U.S. scholars were honest about the demographic cliff developed nations were approaching. Not so today.
Like 70% of the world's countries, not one of the G7 Nations is above the 2.1 replacement fertility rate. The United States (1.62), Canada (1.61), France (1.66), Germany (1.42), Italy (1.2) and Japan (1.2) have all seen steep declines since the 1970s. But Japan has arguably suffered the worst and the most precipitous fall. They lead the world in aging, with the highest share of its citizens 65 and older, and its population is expected to halve in the next hundred years.
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Japan is not debating marriage equality and the demographic vacuum. The court’s decision to anchor the definition of marriage to a couple and their children isn't engaging in bigotry, it is demographic realism.
Whether or not the judge understands the direct connection between the redefinition of marriage and demographic collapse, many scholars do. In fact, one group of them submitted evidence to our own court 10 years ago as a warning that same-sex marriage correlates with not only falling opposite-sex marriage rates, but falling birth rates as well.
The Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars of Fertility and Marriage in Support of Respondents & Affirmance noted that five of the seven states (including Washington, D.C.) with the lowest fertility rates all permitted same-sex marriage (or civil union equivalents). In contrast, none of the nine states with the highest fertility rates allowed it before 2010.
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They projected opposite marriage rates would fall between 5.1% and nearly 9% after the passage of gay marriage. On the conservative end, a 5% reduction means 1.275 million women forgoing marriage during their most fertile years, resulting in nearly 2 million fewer births over the course of one generation.
Those numbers are no longer theoretical. National marriage rates fell from 6.9 per 1000 in 2015 to a projected 5.8 in 2025. The CDC notes that the U.S. total fertility rate has declined every year since 2014.
Demographic regression, evidenced by falling preschool and kindergarten enrollment, is now making its way onto more front pages warning of a shrinking working-age population, slowing economic growth and a caregiving desert. It’s a trend both fueled by and feeding a culture of despair and meaninglessness. Add the very real possibility of long-term population collapse, and we’re staring at a five-alarm demographic fire.
Presuming that no homosexual adults will be dropping out of the heterosexual marriage market, how do you explain the falling birth rates post same-sex marriage? One author explains that ignoring "the inherently generative nature of heterosexual marriages sends a powerful message that procreation is not a valued societal priority."
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The national implications of deemphasizing procreation within this foundational social institution add insult to injury as same-sex marriage has already systemically stripped parenthood laws of the recognition that children come from both a man and a woman. How does culture see the importance of male and female coming together to have babies when our laws can't even say the words mother and father?
It is reasonable to define marriage around, and promote the formation of, opposite-sex couples because they alone are capable of producing the next generation. A capability that artificial reproductive technologies will never be able to match in terms of its benefit to children, nor its national scalability.
The United States and the other 37 nations that have legalized same-sex marriage erred by reducing this species-sustaining institution to a vehicle of adult emotional validation. We should follow Japan's example and recognize that we can and must extend dignity to our friends who identify as LGBT while simultaneously safeguarding the one relationship in society that creates and nurtures new life.
A nation that forgets the purpose of marriage will eventually pay the price. Not just in the victimization of individual children, but in empty classrooms, shrinking families and a future no country can survive.
