South Korea marriage equality movement gaining momentum

On Oct. 30, 2025, a same-sex couple in South Korea filed a petition with the country’s human rights commission after a public institution denied marriage leave to one of the men and later reduced his pay and performance bonus for taking time off for their wedding ceremony. The commission last month completed its investigation and continues to consider the case.

The petition comes as South Korea’s same-sex couples have won a series of legal victories in recent years, even though the country does not extend marriage rights to them. Courts have increasingly been asked to decide whether existing laws and workplace policies can extend equal treatment to LGBTQ+ people, often in the absence of legislative change.

The employer’s policy granted marriage leave, but it did not define marriage or specify who could claim the benefit. After the employee submitted a wedding invitation and requested a brief leave for a ceremony with his same-sex partner, the institution denied the request and treated his absence as unauthorized.

The South Korean Supreme Court ruled on July 18, 2024, that denying dependent health insurance benefits to same-sex couples while extending them to opposite-sex couples amounted to discriminatory treatment. The court said the unequal treatment infringed on human dignity and the right to pursue happiness.

South Korea’s marriage equality movement has evolved gradually, moving from social taboo and legal nonrecognition toward greater public visibility and limited judicial victories. 

In 2004, a same-sex couple unsuccessfully sought a division of assets under a de facto marriage. Nearly a decade later, filmmaker Kim Jho Gwang-soo and his partner, Kim Seung-hwan, applied to register their marriage, but South Korean courts rejected their bid, as well as subsequent attempts by same-sex couples to gain legal recognition.

In February 2023, the Seoul High Court ruled that the National Health Insurance Service must extend dependent health insurance benefits to same-sex partners, marking a landmark legal victory for LGBTQ+ couples. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision made it final.

Under South Korean law, a de facto marriage generally refers to a couple who live together and hold themselves out as married without formally registering their union. While such relationships may receive limited legal recognition in certain circumstances, a marriage is not legally recognized unless it satisfies legal requirements and is registered with the government.

In a ruling made public on June 5, a Seoul court found a same-sex couple had built a life partnership similar to a common-law marriage and deserved legal protection. The court ordered a third party whose affair led to the relationship’s breakdown to pay 10 million won ($6,611.59) in damages.

The court, however, said existing law did not allow it to recognize the relationship as a common-law marriage, underscoring the legal limits that same-sex couples continue to face.

“There is no evidence that the plaintiff and the former partner held a wedding ceremony or revealed their relationship to acquaintances outside their families,” said the court. “From September 2019, when they shared their finances, or at the latest from June 2023, when they lived with the plaintiff’s family and received engagement rings from the plaintiff’s parents and were recognized as a couple, they shared an emotional, physical and financial relationship with a mutual intent to marry, forming a life partnership similar to a common-law marriage.”

On May 31, 2024, South Korean lawmakers introduced the country’s first marriage equality bill. Former Justice Party member Jang Hye-yeong proposed the legislation that 12 lawmakers from across the political spectrum co-sponsored. and co-sponsored by 12 lawmakers from across the political spectrum. The legislation failed later. 

While consensual same-sex relations are not criminalized in South Korea, marriage equality remains unrecognized. Reports suggest many LGBTQ+ people continue to live with limited public visibility.

Recent opinion surveys suggest public support for marriage equality in South Korea has declined. 

A 2025 Hankook Research poll found that 31 percent of respondents supported extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, down from 36 percent in 2021. A separate Gallup Korea survey found that 34 percent backed marriage equality while 58 percent opposed it, reversing gains in public support and returning attitudes to levels seen nearly a decade ago.

The report attributed the decline in support to South Korea’s broader social and political climate. 

Activists told the publication that far-right mobilization, heightened political tensions, and growing online radicalization among some young men had likely contributed to the shift. They also argued politicians routinely cite a lack of public consensus to delay measures such as the Life Partnership Act and the Marriage Equality Act, describing the argument as an excuse for inaction.

Kiyong Shim, an activist with Chingusai, a Korean gay rights group, told the Los Angeles Blade that the marriage leave dispute illustrates the challenges same-sex couples continue to face in South Korea. Shim said the country’s Civil Act contains no provision that explicitly prohibits same-sex marriage, but that marriage registrations by same-sex couples are refused as a matter of administrative practice.

“Because their relationships have no legal standing, exclusion arises in nearly every area of daily life: marriage leave, family allowances, medical decision-making, inheritance, housing, and more,” said Shim. 

He said the marriage equality movement is advancing along two tracks: one is public campaigning, lectures, workshops, and community networking centred on the Marriage for All Korea campaign and the second is through litigation. Fourteen same-sex couples are now plaintiffs in various lawsuits that have been before South Korean courts since 2024.

Shim told the Blade that change is also beginning to take root in South Korea’s judiciary, pointing to the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling that recognized dependent health insurance benefits for same-sex partners.

“Those holding political responsibility — in the legislature, the executive, and beyond — continue to turn away from the rights of LGBTQ+ people,” said Shim. “LGBTQ+ individuals remain exposed to discrimination and hatred in everyday life, and many live by painfully concealing who they are. This is precisely why the campaigning cannot stop, and why the work of organizing must continue.”

Shim told the Blade that public opinion is moving in a more favorable direction, albeit gradually. He said attitudes toward homosexuality, sexual minorities, and marriage equality have steadily become more accepting.

“The problem lies in politics,” said Shim. “In Korea, the forces driving anti-homosexuality sentiment are largely conservative Protestant church groups, and these church groups are deeply entangled with politicians in the ruling Democratic Party. As a result, even within the ruling party, this issue is difficult to address. So we are in an asymmetric situation: the judiciary and public opinion are moving forward, while the very political actors charged with legislation and administration remain stationary.”

Taiwan, Nepal, and Thailand have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. Shim told the Blade there is a growing sense that South Korea is falling behind.

“Society’s perceptions shift most deeply when the fact that LGBTQ+ people are right beside us becomes a natural part of daily life, but this cannot be left to those individuals alone,” he said. “The conditions that make coming out possible must be built by allies together with the community — building workplaces, schools, families, and neighborhoods where discrimination and hatred need not be feared.” 

“What Korea needs right now is exactly this kind of broad, everyday solidarity,” added Shim. “Change in the law and change in daily life have to move together, and that is why the work of campaigning and organizing must not stop. There are already many same-sex couples in Korea living as families, caring for one another. The question is not whether they exist — it is when the state will finally recognize this reality in law.”