A South Korean court on Tuesday recognized the legal rights of a same-sex couple for the first time, in a move celebrated by human rights advocates as a major victory for the country’s LGBTQ community.
The country’s high court sided with So Seong-uk, 32, who sued the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) in 2021 after the agency kicked his partner, Kim Yong-min, out of his plan.
Even though same-sex marriages or civil unions are not legal in South Korea, So and Kim held a ceremony in 2019 to celebrate their love and commitment to one another. They have since lived together as a married couple.
So added Kim to his health insurance as a dependent, but NHIS canceled his status about eight months later.
The couple sued, and last year a lower court sided with the agency. But on Tuesday, the High Court overturned that decision and ordered the agency to resume the coverage of Kim as So’s dependent.
“We are delighted. It is not only our victory but also a victory for many same-sex couples and LGBTQ families in Korea,” the couple said after the ruling, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
The ruling was hailed as “an important decision that moves South Korea closer to achieving marriage equality,” Amnesty International’s East Asia researcher Boram Jang said in a statement.
Even though the LGBTQ community still has “a long way to go” to live in a country free of anti-LGBTQ discrimination, the ruling is important because it “offers hope that prejudice can be overcome,” Jang added.
The NHIS grants spousal coverage benefits to heterosexual couples in de facto marriages, and by denying same-sex couples the same basic rights offered to opposite-sex couples, the agency was discriminating against them.
The decision will “help to rectify this wrong,” Jang said.
“This ruling is significant as the first decision legally recognizing same-sex couples to be made by a court at any level in South Korea, but much more needs to be done to end discrimination against, and criminalization of, the LGBTI community,” Jang added.
In May 2019, Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex unions. Earlier this month, legislation recognizing same-sex unions went into effect in the small European country of Andorra, and Slovenia, the first Eastern European nation to do so.
That brought the total of countries that recognize gay marriages to 33, according to data compiled by Amnesty International. In contrast, at least 67 countries have laws that criminalize same-sex relations between consenting adults, according to the Human Rights Watch.
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