With discrimination still widespread ...
Can Korea ever accept homosexuals?


Homosexuality has long been taboo in Korean society. The traditional Confucian emphasis on familial bonds led homosexuality to be regarded as detrimental to the societal order, as defined by the philosophy’s five categories of social relationship. In the 1980s, homosexuals were widely feared as AIDS carriers.

Today, many Koreans continue to see the sexual orientation as deviant or symptomatic of mental illness. Some even question its very existence: A pastor last month claimed on national television that the country was free of homosexuality. With such perceptions to contend with, many gay men and women hide their identity from colleagues, friends and family.

Simply “coming out” is one of the biggest challenges for gay people here, according to a director at a gay men’s organization that is contacted by about 50 people each week.

“Most people have little understanding of homosexuals, not very deep. I think that they need to be more interested about gay people’s lives and human rights,” said Lee Jong-goel, director-general of Chingusai, or “Between Friends.”

Outside influence

It was this lack of knowledge that filmmaker Lee Hyuk-sang was concerned with when he made “Miracle on Jongno Street,” a 2010 documentary about the lives of four gay Korean men.

“Most Korean straight people did not have information and opportunities to meet gay people around them,” said Lee. “So my documentary was a kind of educational material for them, and they learned and felt about gay people’s everyday lives. Some of them were shocked, because actual Korean gay men and their lives in my film were so ‘normal.’ They thanked me and my film and said ‘I’ll be a supporter for gay people!’”

Lee said he was heartened by the mainly positive response to his film. Perhaps surprisingly, much of the negative reaction actually came from within the gay community itself.

“My film revealed the gay life and gay image in Jongno, so they were afraid to ‘be recognized’ as gay by straight people who didn’t have a gay image and notion (before watching the film).”

One misconception that exists is that homosexuality is a foreign condition, its presence in Korea being attributable to relatively recent outside influences.

“Many Korean homophobes think that Korea had no gay people before the ’90s. They think that it was influenced by Western culture. But that’s not true. They don’t want to know their friends and family members’ sexuality,” said the Chingusai director.

In fact, before the arrival of the Joseon Dynasty in the 14th century and its elevation of Confucian principles, Korea was relatively tolerant of same-sex relationships. According to a paper on the history of homosexuality in Korea by Kim Young-gwan and Hahn Sook-ja, elite warriors during the Silla Kingdom known as “hwarang” engaged in homosexual behavior, while King Kongmin of the Goryeo Kingdom practiced pederasty. While the Confucianism of the Joseon era rarely made direct references to sexual matters, homosexuality necessarily came into conflict with the ridged kinship mores of the time.

“Korean culture, as well as other Asian cultures with strong ties to Confucianism, still views homosexual people as problematic and disruptive to family tradition,” said Lim Hyun-sung, an associate professor at the College of Social Welfare at Kangnam University in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

As the influence of Confucianism has weakened over time, a belief system more recent to Korea has become a significant source of opposition to homosexuality: Christianity.

While there is some diversity of opinion of the issue within the faith, most churches see homosexual acts as sinful. The Christian Council of Korea is the largest organization of Christian churches in Korea, comprised of 69 dominations and 20 Christian organizations. The organization recently protested a concert by Lady Gaga, partly because of her supposed promotion of homosexuality.

“The value of Christianity is love, so we also have affection toward homosexual people. … But in a doctrinal way, we think (of it) as a sin, we hate that kind of sin, but we also love homosexuals as well,” said a CCK team manager who did not wish to be named, stressing he was speaking in a personal capacity only.

“We think God created man and woman and allowed them to be one in marriage. So based on that, we are upholding those kinds of values and are opposing the homosexual issue.”

Visibility

While he acknowledges the differing views on homosexuality within Korean Christianity, he believes that the majority view is here to stay.

“In the near future I think various perspectives will exist, but thinking of the Korean church history, still maybe five years later, 10 years later, Korean conservative groups (will be) a majority of the Korean church.”

Ian Johnson, the founder and CEO of Now Global, the world’s biggest consulting company on the needs of gay consumers, sees it differently. His firm recently launched “Out Now Global LGBT2020 Study,” an anonymous online survey on gay people’s lives in numerous countries, in Korea. Since the company was established in 1992, the constant trend in every country has been greater acceptance of homosexuals, he said.

“In every country we have worked in during the intervening twenty years the trend has been consistently one that sees visibility as the first step ― through research such as our LGBT2020 study ― followed by increasing levels of comfort among general society as they learn that gay people are not that different from themselves,” said Johnson.

“Some aspects of the LGBT life can be different for individual respondents, of course, but in general the types of things that concern mainstream Koreans ― such as work, jobs, finances, families ― can be expected to also concern gay or lesbian Koreans too.”

Johnson said its was too earlier for the survey to have produced clear data for Korea, but that expectations were that Korea would show fewer people “out” than in countries such as the U.S.

“The whole notion of being ‘out’ is really quite new in Korea. Whereas in other places, like the U.S. or Australia, people have been publicly coming out as homosexual since the 1970s and 1980s, and in other places like Germany since the 1920s ― in Korea this is a very new trend.”

Change

For Lee, there is reason to be cautiously hopeful that Korea will eventually be accepting of homosexuality. Some viewers of his film at the Berlin International Film Festival told him that the German capital had been like Korea 30 or 40 years ago.

“There was fear, homophobia, hate crime and prejudice in Berlin at that time, but now Berlin is the central ‘gay’ city in the world where gay people can express their love on the street hand-in-hand, out of the closet,” Lee said.

But he believes it will take time for Korea to catch up ― perhaps 40 years.

“I’m expecting Seoul like that in the future but I’m not sure. So that’s why I’m making films about LGBT people in Korea, because film is the most effective media for spreading messages to the world and can make straight people have positive attitudes toward LGBTs. As for me, that is my duty, I think.”

By John Power (john.power@heraldcorp.com)


Readers’ voice

Homosexuality in Korea...

People who are “not straight” are just a bit different from other human beings. Do we consider that we should “accept” disabled people? No, we do not, because they all are part of us, part of society.

I think the only reason homosexuals are not being welcomed in our society is that they go against Catholicism. Love your neighbor but put them away if your neighbor is gay. What a great dogma!

― SK Boom Lee, Sydney, Australia, via Facebook

Evolution in school books...

I was profoundly shocked and saddened to learn that, according to Nature (“South Korea surrenders to creationist demands” - http://www.nature.com/news/south-korea-surrenders-to-creationist-demands-1.10773), the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology gave in to a creationist lobby, and made possible the publication of high school textbooks where examples of evolution have been removed.

Letting Creationism, the very negation of science and education and one of the worst enemies of democracy (as well as one of the worst enemies of religion*), dictate the contents of textbooks is undoubtedly the most profound disgrace imaginable for any Ministry of Education.

But state-condoned revisionism in Korea, that’s the ultimate abomination.

This is Korea, the country of King Sejong, a wise statesmen who advocated education and science.

This is Korea, a country victim to revisionist textbooks in Japan, where a minority of extremists has considerable power over national politics and manages to keep the whole population in the dark regarding the country’s troubled past.

After the shameful termination of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Korea, and after the flabbergasting removal of history from school curriculum, revisionism is claiming yet another outrageous victory in a country that, after suffering from external aggressions, seems to be under attack from its worst enemies ― those from within.

Of course, people of science are denouncing the scandal, but the attack reaches far beyond science, to the nation as a whole, so every single Korean citizen and everybody who cares for this country should join and defend the nation against the impostors who try to destroy it.

Across the aisle, true partisans of democracy and of the republic must expose and condemn this imposture, prevent revisionist textbooks from being published, and restore the values that make Korea a great country.

*If believing in a creator is perfectly respectable, “Creationism” is pure forgery, an imposture that has nothing to do with science, and even nothing to do with religion: the agenda is political and ultimately, it’s about replacing democracy with theocracy, and about replacing religion with fundamentalism.

― Stephane Mot, Seoul

Foreigners in the media...

The media often seems entirely biased against us and will twist (edit) our words into something very different.

― Jenny Hogg, Seoul, via Twitter

MBC’s doc on foreigners...

Using the bad actions of a few to judge an entire group is naive at best or dishonest at worst. I’m very disappointed to see such a blatant “hit piece” coming from such a mainstream news source here in Korea. For a nation that constantly declares itself to be “global,” this story comes as a blunt reminder that narrow-minded xenophobia does indeed still exist.

― James Moyer, Anyang, via Facebook

Men will be men no matter what the country/circumstance. Korean men also sometimes don’t call Korean women back. Should there be a documentary on that, too? This is definitely xenophobic.

― Chastity Davis, Seoul, via Facebook

Racial discrimination in hiring...

Sadly this is extremely common. A lot of teachers I met in Turkey had left Korea because of the overt racism experienced when job seeking. Truly appalling.

― Deepak Scripples, Thimphu, Bhutan, via Facebook

Promoting tourism...

(Korea is doing) Poorly, except for Chinese and Japanese. Sure the number of tourists are increasing, Korean Wave, Korean food is getting recognized, movies as well for a couple of years. However my feeling of tourism in Korea is that after they come here they are basically by themselves; unless they go to Namsan tower, Gyungbok Palace and the big tourists spots.

― Jonte Hee Soo A, Suwon, via Facebook