Andrew Cheng has done a great job summarizing what is going on with Kim Jho Gwang-soo and his battle for marriage equality in Korea with partner Kim Seung-hwan. Check out an excerpt of his post below.

The year 2015 has seen marriage equality (legalization of marriage between two men or two women, also known as gay marriage or same-sex marriage) coming into effect in Ireland by popular vote and in the United States by Supreme Court ruling. Now, the stage has been set for Korea's own legal showdown, as a well-known gay couple has filed a lawsuit against the district office that denied them a marriage license in 2013.

Kim Jho Gwang-soo, a film director perhaps best known for his feature film Two Weddings and a Funeral as well as his LGBTQ activism, and his partner Kim Seung-hwan (David Kim), have found themselves at the forefront of the battle for sexual minorities' equal rights, at least in terms of media focus.

The following is my translation of the first few paragraphs from a Daum News article:

On the afternoon of July 6th, a film director shed tears in front of many cameras, supporters, and a large audience. Behind him was a court house, and before him was the world's prejudice. He said to those before him, "I beg of you to recognize our relationship before I die." He was Kim Jho Gwang-soo, one-half of the country's very first gay couple that held a public wedding ceremony in 2013.

The couple (부부) Kim Jho Gwang-soo and Kim Seung-hwan appeared at the Seoul Western District Court (서울서부지방법원) in Mapo-gu last Monday afternoon. The two of them had filed an appeal against the proceedings of the Family Registration Public Office, and this was the day of their hearing. Previously, the two had held Korea's first gay public wedding ceremony on December 10th, 2013, which is International Human Rights Day (세계인권의 날), and had also filed applications for marriage licenses. However, the Seodaemun District Office refused them, citing the civil definition of marriage. This is the country's first gay marriage lawsuit, and the case has now begun.

(I especially like how the Sino-Korean word "부부" was used to refer to the couple, since the Chinese characters "夫婦" refer to a man and a woman, but its usage for the case of Kim Jho Gwang-soo and Kim Seung-hwan acknowledges, in a way, that their relationship is equal to the traditional kind of couple. At the same time, the gender-neutral English loanword 커플 is also used to refer to them in this article, which is also progressive in its own fashion.)

To read more of the post, head over to Andrew Goes to Korea.