The National Human Rights Commission of Korea supported the enactment of a general antidiscrimination law covering employment and services. It set up a four year process of consultations and discussions and funded a major report on the issues by the leading lesbian organisation that was completed in 2005 (Sanders 2012). A bill was drafted by the Commission that would have prohibited discrimination on 20 specific grounds, including sexual orientation, but not gender identity. The Commission’s draft was endorsed by the Ministry of Justice with only minor changes.
The LGBT organisations were highly critical of the bill. Although they had been consulted in advance, they had been given no role in the actual drafting process. Additionally, they criticised the bill for not including transgendered people and pointed out there were no penalties for non-compliance. Employers could discriminate and not be punished. Additionally, the provisions on sexual harassment did not, initially, include homosexuals (but that was corrected by the Department of Justice).
Conservative forces organised in reaction to the proposed legislation. Around 100 university professors came out publicly in opposition. Near the deadline for submissions, they announced a coalition of organisations and individuals opposed to the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ in the legislation. A petition, spearheaded by an organisation called The Assembly of Scientists against Embryonic Cloning, was sent to all branches of government claiming that if the bill became law, ‘homosexuals will try to seduce everyone, including adolescents; victims will be forced to become homosexuals; and sexual harassment by homosexuals will increase’ (Human Rights Watch 2007).
In response to this unexpected active opposition, the Ministry of Justice dropped the references in the draft bill to ‘sexual orientation’ (responding to religious objections) and six other named grounds (opposed by business). The definition section was also dropped, eliminating the only reference intended to include transgendered individuals. Apparently the Ministry ofJustice saw the deletions as tactically necessary to get the bill through the National Assembly (in advance of the presidential election in December and Assembly elections in April). Korean activists called for international protests. Human Rights Watch, based in New York, protested the exclusions in a press release and a letter to the Korean cabinet, and called for ‘gender identity’ to be added to the original list of grounds. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission asked supporters to write letters of protest. A coalition of 40 Korean groups submitted a petition for the restoration of ‘sexual orientation’. Though South Korean lesbian and gay activists were usually unwilling to be photographed or filmed, during these protests several spoke on camera to national and international media (Kelley 2007).
Although LGBT groups had been highly critical of the original bill, they had no choice but to defend it in the face of the sudden strong conservative Christian opposition. The Associated Press (Kim 2007) reported that dozens of human rights activists, labour party members and gay and lesbian activists held a joint press conference that called on conservative Christian groups to ‘stop their witch hunt on sexual minorities’. Hahn Chae-yoon emphasised the importance of the issue, arguing that ‘This struggle has the potential to be the Stonewall of Korea. There has been no previous instance of this many LGBT people coming together in anger and solidarity against a common enemy’ (cited in Poore 2007). However, the bill was eventually withdrawn from the National Assembly, and has not been resubmitted.