On tenth anniversary of suicide, gay community still seeking human rights

Posted on : 2013-04-25 17:54 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
The failure of a recent anti-discrimination bill was a setback, but civic groups still fighting homophobia
 a gay South Korean man
a gay South Korean man

By Um Ji-won, staff reporter

It didn’t make sense. They believed in the same God he did, yet they called him a “devil,” and for just one reason - because he loved other boys rather than girls. On April 25, 2003, the boy - identified only by his surname Yoon - ended his life at just 19 years of age. He hanged himself in the offices of a group working for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. It was the last place he could go - he could no longer stay at the same school after it became known that he was gay.

“Once I’m dead, I’ll be able to say it loud and proud: ‘I’m gay.’ I won’t need to feel sad anymore. I won’t suffer anymore.”

Yoon, who has become a well-known figure to South Korea’s LGBT community under his nickname “Yugudang,” summed up the torment of his short life in his suicide note. A devout Catholic, he is known to have despaired over the Christian community’s denunciations of homosexuality.

In April 2003, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) declared that gay people should be “judged by the fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The statement came in response to a National Human Rights Commission recommendation that a provision on homosexuality in the “standards for media harmfulness” to young people in Article 7 of the Youth Protection Act enforcement decree was in violation of constitutionally guaranteed rights to equality and the pursuit of happiness.

Yoon was deeply involved in a campaign by the LGBT community to have the provision abolished. His suicide came just three weeks after the CCK statement was published.

“If my death can make my these phony ‘Christians’ going on about ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ realize something . . .,” he wrote in his note, “it would be how cruel, how un-Christian and inhuman it is to drive a person - many, many people - to the brink with their senseless prejudice.”

April 25 will be the tenth anniversary of Yoon’s death. His wish came true the following year - the homosexuality provision was dropped from the enforcement decree - but little has improved in terms of discrimination against and ostracism of LGBT people.

A survey of 221 LGBT youths under the age of 20 between July and August of last year by the group Rainbow Movement Against Discrimination of Sexual Minorities showed 54.3%, or more than half, saying that discrimination at school based on sexual orientation or identity was “severe.” When asked for examples, young people mentioned hearing that homosexuality was a “mental illness” and that homosexual intercourse “causes AIDS.”

But now even an anti-discrimination bill aimed at stopping discrimination based on sexual orientation, sexual identity, educational background, age, military history, or any other reasons looks in danger of foundering over objections from the conservative Christian community.

LGBT rights groups said they plan to work actively during Yoon’s memorial period from Apr. 22 to 28 to combat the onslaught of hatred from conservative Christians and right-wingers by making their own voices heard and sharing the need for anti-discrimination laws.

A tenth anniversary memorial committee for Yoon, with members from Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights of Korea and other LGBT and human rights groups, plans to hold a prayer vigil on the evening of Apr. 25 at the St. Francis Education Center in Seoul’s Jeong-dong neighborhood with Christians who support LGBT rights. On Apr. 27, a memorial festival is being staged by LGBT youths in front of Daehan Gate in downtown Seoul.

The Yugudang Literary Awards, an event in honor of Yoon’s unrealized dream of becoming a poet, were organized for the first time this past April 1 to 14.

 

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