[Opinion] Same-Sex Marriage

“Mr. Yi Sang-cheol will take Mr. Park Jong-geun as your lifetime companion. You will always love him. . . .” Two days ago, the country’s first open same-sex wedding ceremony took place in a café in Seoul. The couple first met in a theater 18 months ago, and they started to live together one month later. They call each other “Babe” and “Honey.” Lee works at an online services company for homosexuals, and Park is a homemaker. Yesterday, after returning from a one-night, two-day honeymoon, they applied to the Eunpyong district office for a marriage license. The office said it will notify him of its decision in writing.

Why did they host a public ceremony although they could not tell their parents about it? Their first answer is, “We love each other.” Their second answer is it was done for the happiness of other sexual minorities. Once with legal approval, they will want to enjoy all the benefits ordinary couples can enjoy: raising children and benefit from the national healthcare system. For the younger generation, which sees out-of-marriage living together as fashionable as seen in a soap opera, same-sex marriage is not a surprise.

Ahead of the presidential race, the same sex marriage has become the flash point of a culture war in the U.S. As marriage licenses were issued in waves for same-sex couples, President George W. Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to two people of the opposite sex. Sen. John Kerry, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said, “Bush takes issue with same-sex marriage as a wedge issue because he has little to say about the economy or international relations.” However, he supports same-sex civil unions, not marriage, because he is concerned that an excessively progressive position would cost votes.

In 1948, when the state of California began to mount resistance to the ban on inter-racial marriage, eight out of every 10 Americans opposed the Californian move. It was 19 years later when the Supreme Court lifted the restrictions. The issue of same-sex marriage is not just tied up with conservatism and liberalism, but also entangled in many other factors such as religion, family, and the roles of society and the government. On the same day Bush announced his support for the constitutional amendment, the British Conservative Party said it would host a gay summit in a move to change its old homophobic image. Love needs to know how to swim with the political current.