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This short essay will map Korean American Church’s current movement and stance regarding homosexuality and same sex marriage. Due to its outspoken voice against homosexuality and same sex marriage in the past, Korean American Church became an active voice for API religious communities representing an anti-gay stance. Indeed, there has been quite a history in Korean American Church, which I would like to describe as the history of intolerance.
In 2000 over 200 Korean American pastors from various denominations in Southern California ran an open ad in a Los Angeles based Korean daily newspaper. Through the ad, the pastors stated that homosexuality was not biblical and therefore the church would not tolerate it. In the same year, some Korean pastors participated in a political campaign organized by the Christian Coalition of California. The Christian coalition petitioned for an initiative, which intended to prohibit the public recognition of homosexuality, in the November election ballot. A Korean pastor from a Baptist Church in Southern California was the organizer, and many Korean Americans who were members of Korean American Church in Southern California and some in Northern California signed the petition. But the Christian Coalition’s petition didn’t make it to the election ballot due to lack of participation from other religious groups.
It was unusual that Korean Church was involved in such a political movement. But the people who participated in the petition said that they did it for religious reasons. They argued that the homosexual lifestyle was not compatible with Scripture. But since the political campaign failed, Korean American Church seems to have moved on and turned to its original mission of spiritual movement and growth. Indeed, there was not enough media coverage of Korean American Church involving any forms of political activity or protest except in one occasion.
The first and probably the last protest organized by Korean American Church since 2000 to today was held in the state of Washington. When Massachusetts issued marriage license to same sex couple last year, the Korean American Church in Washington State held a protest meeting in downtown Seattle. 250 church members from Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and two other cities gathered in downtown Seattle and protested same sex marriage. According to Korean American daily newspaper, the protesters had slogans like: “The God’s Creation is ending because of obscene gays and lesbians!” “Homosexuality is against biblical teaching!” “Homosexuality is sin to the faith of God and sin to families in the world.” “Homosexuality is destroying our humanity.”
The Korean pastors who were involved in the anti-gay movement belonged to various religious denominations, including Presbyterian, Methodists, and Baptist Church. Most Korean American pastors regardless of their different denominational affiliates shared a similar mentality. For example, they read and believe in Bible literally. Their political stance is very similar to fundamental evangelical Christians’ in the U.S.
Over 50% of Korean American churches are members of various Presbyterian Reformed Churches. In a big picture, Korean pastors in Presbyterian Churches seem to be unanimously against homosexuality. For example, in 2000, 350 Korean American congregations belonging to Presbyterian Church of USA (hereafter PCUSA) sent an open letter to other congregations and recommended them to vote for Amendment O. Amendment O would prohibit Presbyterian pastors from conducting marriage-like ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples and also forbid such services on property owned by Presbyterian congregations. In the next year, 360 Korean American congregations in the PCUSA sent another letter to other congregations and expressed their opposition to Amendment A. Korean pastors explained that passing of Amendment A would allow ordination to gays and lesbians in the PCUSA. The Korean American pastors showed a concern that by allowing same sex marriage and ordination to gays and lesbians, PCUSA could lose the membership of Korean American Church, which has been the main financial contributor to PCUSA in the past 10 years.
Another major denomination that Korean American congregations are affiliated with is the Methodist Church. In 1999, there was a historical moment in the United Methodist Church (hereafter, UMC) when the dozens of UMC pastors presided at the civil union between lesbians in Sacramento. When this event was reported, Korean American Methodist pastors expressed their discomfort and stated that they did not endorse same sex marriage, which, they believed, went against Bible.
As the controversy over same marriage continues in the mainstream American society, Korean American Church’s protest may continue in various ways. There are two types of protests among members from Korean American church. On the one hand, first generation Korean American Christians, who speak Korean as their primary language, are considered conservative and fundamentally evangelical, and these are usually the ones who go on the street and protest. On the other hand, younger Korean Americans, who were born in Korea and moved to America in very early age and second or later generations and speak English as their primary language, are relatively liberal. Most of them indeed are trying to accept homosexuality as a walk of life, although they don’t agree with homosexual lifestyle. These young Korean Americans do not publicly display their opinion of homosexuality and same sex marriage. Instead, these young Korean Americans promote Judeo-Christian family value. According to Judeo-Christian value, marriage is between a man and a woman, and the main goal for the marriage is to participate in God’s procreation.
An organization like Korean Churches for Community Development (hereafter, KCCD) is a good example. KCCD, endorsed by numerous Korean American English ministry churches and the mainstream American Christian organizations, started to promote the Judeo-Christian marriage value to their fellow young Asian Americans. They have petitioned an initiative for “Asian Pacific American healthy marriage network” among Korean American Churches in the States. According to the mission statement of KCCD, marriage should be based on Christian faith, and Church should be an advocate for healthy marriage. (I requested their view on same sex marriage from the Executive Director, but he didn’t respond.) The mission of KCCD is very similar to that of slightly liberal religious organization in the mainstream American religion, which often stands as family value and pro-life groups.
Promoting sacredness of constitutional marriage between man and woman and traditional family values become part of the religious movement from liberal religious organization in the U.S. These religious people deliberately avoid addressing issues like homosexuality and same sex marriage, and those are people who often said, “We don’t have anything to say about same sex marriage.” And the current trend of religious movement from young Korean American generation seems to follow this direction.
The movements like KCCD are not as aggressive or intolerant as other protest movements like the street protesters, who often use graphic and offensive banners and slogans toward gays and lesbians. But the bottom line is the same: they believe that marriage is for a man and a woman, not for same sex couples.
Then, we may wonder why Korean American Church regardless of their denominations is so against homosexuality and same sex marriage. Although Korean American Church argues that same sex lifestyle and marriage is against biblical teaching, I argue that Korea’s conservative view of marriage also has something to do with it.
In Korean culture, marriage has a different value and meaning than any other culture has. In Korea, marriage is more family to family than individual to individual. Since family is such an important part of marriage practice, the ideal marriage for Koreans is a union between a man and a woman from two compatible Korean families. For this reason, many Korean Americans do not like the idea of international marriage. According to a survey poll (www.sarang.com) conducted by the largest Korean American church in Southern California, Sarang Church in Anaheim, 91% of the congregation said that they do not like the idea of international marriage. And they hoped that their children would marry other Korean children.
There are many other rules and regulations in terms of Korean marriage practice. For example, I have the last name Cho from a specific tribe, and I am not supposed to marry a Korean man Cho from the same tribe. The idea of prohibiting marriage between individuals by the same last name from the same tribe is to prohibit marriage within close family. However, the standard of being a close family is paternally oriented. In other words, I could marry anyone from my mother’s tribe but not from my father’s tribe. Also, there are millions of Cho’s, and indeed many of them are from the same tribe, but there is no scientific and physical evidence that the people from the same name and tribe are genetically related. For this reason, there are some Korean couples living together with children who cannot be recognized by the public law. Korean women’s groups have challenged this marriage law, and the law has been revised over the years.
Because of this ideal of Korean marriage and mythological rules and regulations, Koreans seem to be intolerant of any other forms of marriage. Thus, Koreans’ intolerance to certain marriage practices is not limited to same sex marriage. As much as they are intolerant of same sex marriage, they are also intolerant of international marriage and marriage between same last name. For most Koreans’ moral standard, living with someone without legal recognition is not morally acceptable. From this standard, a Korean woman like me, although I am heterosexual, unmarried but living with a man who is not even Korean, is living in sin.
Future and Hope
While researching this issue, I also see a hope. Korean Church is hierarchical. The senior pastor has all the authority in the church. The pastor is the main voice for the whole congregation. In other words, the congregation may have different opinion from the pastor’s, but their difference is easily dismissed.
According to a survey from Korean American Coalition, Los Angeles Chapter (www.kacla.org), the survey asked pastors and members of various Korean churches in Southern California whether they approve of gays and lesbians. 97.3% of pastors answered that they don’t approve homosexual people and also 90.3% of church officers answered that they didn’t approve them either. However, only 24.6% of lay people answered that they don’t approve homosexuals. In other words, 75.4% of Korean American lay people actually said that they approve gays and lesbians. Although Korean American pastors are outspoken about their anti-homosexual stance, it does not mean that their congregations support anti-homosexual stance. Due to the hierarchical system of the Korean Church, the lay people are not supposed to say things that could go against their pastors.
As I mention earlier, a Korean American church in the Washington State protested. But the attendance was only 250. This number is very poor by Korean church standard. Considering that each Korean American congregation could draw over 1000 members on Sunday worship, 250 members from hundreds of Korean American congregations meant nothing.
Also, I had a chance to talk to Rev. Jin. S. Kim. Rev. Kim was a member of Korean American council in the PCUSA and wrote the letter in 2001 to ask other PCUSA congregations not to support ordination to gays or lesbians. Rev. Kim is a pastor in a Korean American Church in the state of Minnesota. When I shared where I stood regarding homosexuality, he also shared the same view that I had: for example, he believed that homophobia is one of the great sins of our day, and the way that both church and society single out homosexual behavior as more aberrant than others is something that he hopes will one day end. He also does not believe that it is sinful to have a homosexual orientation. But as a pastor from the predominantly white area, Rev. Kim explains that Korean American Church has other issues such as racism which should be given priority. He worries that same sex marriage becomes the priority of middle-class white people and takes hegemony over other issues. He is afraid that this kind of political debate in the church could destroy the church’s unity. The problem he had regarding homosexual lifestyle was its incompatibility with Scripture. But he was interested in social justice and equality as much as we are and willing to listen to other opinions.
There are other Korean American pastors who are not against homosexuality and same sex union. My mentor from a seminary program in Berkeley was a Korean American pastor. He personally supports homosexuality. But in his social location as a Korean pastor, it was hard for him to display his opinion in public. He wasn’t the only Korean American pastor who supported different sexual orientation. These pastors are usually young and educated with ministry degrees from liberal seminaries in the States, but they are minor and invisible. But these young humanitarian Korean American pastors do exist.
Other API Communities
Another API religious community, the Chinese American Church in San Francisco had a protest meeting last year. Right after the legalization of same sex marriage in Massachusetts, an Asian American Christian crowd of more than 7000 rallied in the Sunset District in the city. Participants were mostly Chinese. This kind of a huge crowd and activity made us believe that Chinese American Church may be intolerant. But according to professor and theologian Kwok Pui Lan, not all Chinese Christians are against homosexuality. Through her article, which is available at www.thewitness.org, she points out that same sex union and other gay activism are active among Christian Communities in Asia. For example, a few same sex unions were held in Taiwan and the Philippines. Other gay activism has been reported in Hong Kong and Singapore. And networking and pastoral care for LGBT folks have been recently formed in Korea and Japan.
Professor Kwok shares a popular saying in API community: “When Asian American Children come out, their parents go into the closet.”
I understand that this kind of close family relation and traditional family oriented Asian culture makes it harder for Asian Americans to accept different family styles. As a person who does not like to label people such as heterosexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, or bisexual, I hope someday that we could get over our conceptual way of defining people based on our sexual orientation and sexual preference. I believe that we are all equal human beings made in God’s image and deserve to marry anyone we care for and love.
I wish that everyone, no matter what her or his sexual orientation is, could share the equal right of marriage that they deserve to have.