On Sunday, the Christian right successfully blocked the Queer Culture Festival parade's notice of assembly, which needed to be approved by the Namdaemun Police Department. This marks the second time this year that conservative protestants have disrupted the location of the event.
 

After learning that Namdaemun Police Department was going to take petitions on a first-come first-serve basis and anti-gay groups were already lining up, queer activists quickly mobilized and lined up in shifts outside of the police station for more than one week. The result? Neither group can have a parade on the 28th of June.

While the Namdaemun Police Station argues that they were being impartial by not allowing either the queer or anti-gay activists permission to march, the end result was exactly what the Christian groups were aiming for. Some groups, such as Shalom Nabi are calling for even more, desiring a complete cancellation of the festival.

Activists have been disappointed in the decision, stressing how while they were second in line at the Namdaemun Police Station, they were first in line to register with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and pointing out the ridiculousness of the excuse that it will disrupt traffic.

As a parade, some traffic disruption is inevitable, but in the KQCF's official statement they point out how over the past fifteen years attendance has increasingly grown but "there has been no inconvenience to pedestrian or vehicular traffic on routes such as Cheonggye-daero, which is specified as a main street and where the Pride Parade has been held 4 times."

Although the small but vocal group of extremist Christians has been successful in mobilizing their people toward hindering the implementation of the Queer Culture Festival, other religious groups have come forward in support of the festival, including the Jogye Order and progressive protestants.

Seoul Pride is not the only festival facing opposition; in Daegu the Jung-gu District Office has not permitted the use of an outdoor stage, but have insisted it was an internal decision and not related to strong opposition by Christian groups who had strongly opposed the parade in 2014.

Another silver lining? The amount of resistance by the religious right has ensured that information about the parade has been all over both Korean and global media.

One medium to express your displeasure in the current anti-gay policies is to head over to the petition on Change.org.

Of course, make sure to join in the 2015 Queer Culture Festival, which, though parade-less, will surely be pushing toward queer revolution.