Queer fear

By Deauwand Myers

I met a friend recently who expressed his admiration for President Moon Jae-in. Surely, he's more qualified to speak on the matter than I am. A Korean native, and Ivy League educated, he's also well-traveled and well-versed in American and Korean political affairs. He has a deeper understanding than I do on the intricacies of Korean society.

Those caveats aside, it's been my job at The Korea Times for over seven years to opine on foreign and domestic issues. Attendant to that task, I've had to research Korean history, OECD data and geopolitical minutia in ways I wouldn't otherwise, if not for my work as an opinions columnist.

President Moon is miles and away better than former President Park Geun-hye, no doubt.

A former human rights lawyer, Moon is the logical heir to the legacy of his mentor, the late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun (Moon also served as chief of staff for President Roh).

Moon's resume is impressive, and like former U.S. President Barack Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his educational pedigree advantaged him in pursuing a lucrative career as a litigator.

Yet, all three chose public service rather than the rank pursuit of wealth: Obama as a community activist, Clinton as an advocate for the Children's Defense Fund, and Moon championing human rights, as in ending discrimination against the disabled and sexual minorities in Korean society.

In his failed bid for the presidency in 2012, then candidate Moon advocated for an anti-discrimination law for women, the disabled and racial and sexual minorities. In the 2017 Korean presidential election, he made an obviously political and cynical decision to abandon that legislative priority.

In a nationally televised presidential debate, Moon said he, and I quote, "opposes homosexuality." (How one opposes an innate trait in other human beings is beyond me; it would be like me saying "I oppose people with red hair," but I digress.)

Moon's outlandish response to conservative candidate Hong Joon-pyo's opining that gay soldiers were a source of weakness in the Korean military caused an immediate and appropriate outcry from Korea's LGBTQ community. The political expediency of Moon's remarks is vulgar and transparent.

Moon made the (unverified) calculation that he lost the 2012 election to the impeached President Park because of his advocacy for rights and protections for Korea's sexual minorities. He later "clarified" his comments, arguing he still believes there should not be discrimination based on sexual orientation in Korean society (all the while, expressing his opposition to the legalizing of same-sex marriage).

This is too cute by half. Respectfully, President Moon can't have it both ways. Saying one doesn't believe in discrimination against sexual minorities, while "opposing" their very existence, is nonsensical. There's a more deleterious and immediate effect of Moon's political cowardice than just the continued discrimination against gay folks.

Due in part to the loud opposition of protections for sexual minorities by the vocal and virulently homophobic Christian voting bloc, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea has not proposed any anti-discrimination legislation. There are no major laws codifying protections for women in the workplace, wage parity, wage theft, hiring practices for religious minorities and the disabled, or outlawing racial discrimination.

Korea is one of the few wealthy, advanced democracies in the OECD with no such law in the books, and no enforcement regime to penalize violators for the few laws encompassing some of the aforementioned disenfranchised groups.

The equal treatment of women and sexual minorities cannot be won through government legislation alone. We need look no further than to the continued wealth and health disparities of racial minorities and women in the United States, long after passage of Women's Suffrage (1920), and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of the mid-1960s. Further, if the feminist movement of that same era were completely successful, #MeToo wouldn't be needed.

What public policy does do is allow those protected by tools of the state to ensure some measure of redress when violations do occur. An anti-discrimination law is not a panacea of love and happiness and equality, but it's a necessary step toward the humanizing of those not seen as complete citizens.

Korea is still the miracle on the Han River. In the course of 30 years, Korea transformed itself from an impoverished, war-ravaged country ruled by a succession of violent, corrupt quasi-dictatorial presidents to a full-fledged, wealthy democratic society, complete with a gleaming infrastructure, near-full literacy, a long life expectancy and universal healthcare (many of which the United States, the richest, most powerful nation in human history, doesn't have).

Korea has come so far, but not. While Moon breathlessly pursues rapprochement with North Korea, he'd be wise to pursue positive domestic policies, like an anti-discrimination law, which would solidify his legacy as a champion of human rights.

Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul.