Filmmakers wed in Korea’s first-ever public same sex marriage

Posted on : 2013-09-09 11:59 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
The next step for marriage equality is seeking legal recognition of same sex unions
 and Rainbow Factory president Kim Seung-hwan kiss at their wedding
and Rainbow Factory president Kim Seung-hwan kiss at their wedding

By Kim Kyung-wook and Kim Hyo-sil, staff reporters

The two of them had tears in their eyes. “I vow to take you as my spouse for the rest of my life and love you forever.” After the vows were exchanged, the couple clasped hands. Cries of congratulations rang out as the guests waved purple balloons. Some of them were weeping as well.

The rainbow flags of LGBT rights were flying on Sep. 7 as film director Kim-Jo Gwang-su, 48, and gay film distributor Rainbow Factory president Kim Seung-hwan, 29, held their wedding. Both Kim-Jo and Kim are male and this was the first public same sex marriage in Korean history.

The event took place at 6 pm near Gwangtong Bridge on Seoul’s Cheonggye Stream. A trio of Kim-Jo’s film director colleagues - Byun Young-joo, Kim Tae-yong, and Lee Hae-young - officiated, and the 1,000 guests included a number of prominent figures in politics, society, and culture, including Institute for Peace Affairs director Baek Ki-wan, former Korean National Police University professor Pyo Chang-won, transgender singer Harisu and her husband Micky Jung, and Democratic Party lawmaker Jin Sun-mi.

Park Gyeong-seok, principal of Nodl Popular School for Persons with Disabilities and another of the attendees, lauded the event for “showing that you can express yourself freely and live an exciting life in a society that turns difference into discrimination, where people feel like they have to hide like criminals if they step even a bit outside the mainstream.”

Baek Ki-wan said, “The two young men’s ceremony today was a feast of love and the first stage in shedding the skin that kept them trapped for so long.”

Yu Ji-hyun, a 22-year-old Seoul resident who attended the ceremony, said the event “made it seem like social views toward sexual minorities have become more open. I think today’s wedding was a positive signal to the LGBT population.”

Opponents of gay marriage twice interrupted the proceedings by jumping on the stage. A man in his 50s who identified himself as “a Christian” stormed the stage at around 7:10 and sprayed it with filth, declaring that he had “mixed soybean paste and shit.” Later, the wedding was once again halted when a male member of the conservative group Hwalbindan who appeared to be in his sixties also climbed onstage carrying a sign that read, “Smash the gay wedding that is polluting Cheonggye Stream. The whole nation is opposed.”

Already, the wedding is fueling discussions of gay marriage. Same sex couples still face daunting institutional obstacles - not least of them the lack of legal recognition for their unions.

During the ceremony, Kim-Jo and Kim said they planned to go to their local district office shortly after to register the wedding. But having their legal status as a married couple recognized will be no easy matter. In 2004, same sex couple Lee Sang-cheol, 45, and Park Jong-geun, 41, attempted to register their marriage at Seoul’s Eunpyeong District Office, but were denied.

Same sex marriage is not actually illegal in South Korea. It is not illegal for two people of the same sex to wed. This is why LGBT rights groups insist on calling for “institutionalization” of same sex marriage rather than its “legalization.”

But the inability to register the marriage prevents the couple’s marriage from being legally recognized. The Civil Code defines the participants in a marriage as “husband and wife.” Prevailing views hold marriage to be a union between a man and a woman. In September 2011, the Supreme Court ruled to disallow individuals from remaining married after a sex change operation or from changing their gender while acting as guardian to a child. Its argument was that the civil code “does not permit marriage between people of the same sex.”

“The marriage registration system is one where your marriage becomes valid simply through registration, according to the Act on the Registration Etc. of Family Relationship,” said Han Ga-ram, an attorney with the public interest and human rights legal group Hope and Law. “But they presume that only opposite sex couples can be married.”

Even common law marriages aren’t recognized. In July 2004, Incheon District Court dismissed a request from a plaintiff requesting division of assets and alimony after the dissolution of a same sex common law marriage. The plaintiff had lived with a partner of the same sex since 1980 and was seeking compensation after the relationship ended due to abusive behavior by the partner. The court ruled that it was “impossible to conclude that there was anything warranting recognition as a marriage.”

Many experts argue for the need to legally recognize the unions of LGBT couples to uphold human dignity.

“Because they are not legally recognized, same sex couples are denied a number of benefits - on taxes, healthcare, housing, and so forth - even when their relationship is for all intents and purposes a marriage,” said Han. “These couples have the same kind of companion relationship and family community as opposite sex couples. The law needs to recognize different forms of marriage so that they enjoy equal legal rights as couples.”

Jeon Kyu-chan, a professor of broadcasting theory at Korea National University of Arts, said Kim-Jo and Kim’s public marriage was significant as a “sociocultural event that questioned whether it is right for the state, rather than the couple, to hold sovereignty over who can be married in South Korea.”

“We need to have a serious and responsible discussion on this issue,” Jeon argued.

As of 2013, a total of fourteen countries around the world legally recognized same sex marriage, including Belgium, Spain, South Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom. Other countries, such as Denmark, Germany, Austria, and Finland, offer the option of civil unions for same sex couples.

 

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