South Korea: Court upholds ban on gay sex within armed forces

South Korea’s constitutional court upheld a law prohibiting same-sex relationships within the armed forces on Thursday. The court justified its decision by citing the potential risk it posed to the military’s combat readiness. This ruling, however, has been criticised by activists who view it as a setback for gay rights. According to the country’s military criminal act, members of the armed forces can face imprisonment of up to two years for engaging in same-sex relationships. This law has been challenged and upheld by the court on four occasions since 2002. The court’s ruling maintained that permitting same-sex relations could undermine military discipline and compromise its combat capabilities. Rights groups have been urging the court to scrap what they termed an “outdated and bad” law, after the Supreme Court last year overturned a military court’s conviction of two soldiers sentenced to suspended prison terms for a consensual same-sex relationship. Activists said the law fuels violence and discrimination against and stigmatization of gay soldiers. “This continued endorsement for the criminalization of consensual same-sex acts within the Korean military is a distressing setback in the decades-long struggle for equality in the country,” Boram Jang, Amnesty International’s East Asia researcher, said in a statement after Thursday’s ruling. South Korea has one of the world’s largest active armies, with all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 28 required to serve between 18 and 21 months.