Seoul, South Korea, simultaneously hosted a “Queer Culture Festival” and a Christian “Awakening” concert, attracting tens of thousands of people this weekend, initially creating concerns of conflict but ultimately resulting in no reports of violence, no injuries, and no major contentious incidents.
The fate of the annual Seoul Queer Culture Festival (SQCF) raised international concerns this year after the organization that typically organizes it lost out on a permit to use its usual venue, Seoul Plaza, for the event. The government of conservative Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, of the ruling People Power Party, received competing requests from the LGBTQI+ group and from the Christian Television System (CTS) Culture Foundation for the use of Seoul Plaza on July 1.
The government granted CTS, a national Christian programming network, the permit, but allowed SQCF organizers to plan their event elsewhere in the nation’s capital. CTS executives denied that they requested the permit as a means of blocking the LGBTQI+ event. Opposition to the event did emerge in the form of an “anti-homosexuality” protest also taking place in Seoul on Saturday, opposite the queer festival and independent from the Christian Awakening concert.
A protester, left, holds up a card opposing the Seoul Queer Culture Festival in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, July 1, 2023 (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon).
Despite no reports that the government impeded the organization of the queer festival outside of Seoul Plaza, LGBTQI+ activists and Western media decried “repression” and “discrimination,” later celebrating the unimpeded celebration as an act of resilience.
The Queer Festival attracted 150,000 people, according to its organizers. The number of attendees at the CTV is unclear; in addition to the concert, the event featured booths to engage in religious calligraphy and resources for drug addiction and other humanitarian efforts, so the number of participants also included passersby around Seoul Plaza. Organizers of the anti-homosexuality protest claimed similar numbers for their event. The Korea Herald claimed the anti-homosexuality event attracted only 12,000 people, however.
Participants join in on celebrations at the Pride parade, which was held at a different venue this year in Seoul, South Korea, on July 1, 2023 (Photo by Tina Hsu for the Washington Post via Getty).
Despite the large numbers of participants in events with adverse ideologies, the Korea Herald noted that no reports of injuries or any significant conflict occurred. A small number of people reportedly attempted to intercept the parade, running into it demanding participants “repent,” but the parade drowned out the protesters with music, and police rapidly foisted them away, without violence.
The Herald reported that the peaceful weekend was made possible through the organization of a major police operation.
“For Saturday’s event, the police stationed 60 squads consisting of 3,600 personnel around the event venue and along the parade course to prevent clashes with opposing groups and to ensure crowd control,” the newspaper noted. “No injuries were reported during the event.”
Seoul police have faced immense public scrutiny in the past few months since failing to maintain order at Halloween celebrations in October. A crowd surge in Itaewon, a nightlife district of Seoul, resulted in more than 120 dead and another hundred injured, many crushed by the large crowd. Reports indicated that police were unprepared to control the crowd of about 100,000 people taking to the streets to celebrate the Western holiday – the single largest public event since South Korea ended Wuhan coronavirus-related limits on event sizes and other pandemic protocol.
The theme of this year’s Queer Festival was “Rise Up, Queer Up.” The Washington Post reported that in addition to featuring LGBTQI+ organizations advocating for same-sex marriage – which is not legal in South Korea – and tolerance for the community, drag queens marched and performed, and there was a message from the U.S. government. American Ambassador to South Korea Philip Goldberg, wearing a pin featuring both the American flag and the original rainbow flag, sent a video message to the event emphasizing that LGBTQI+ issues were a foreign policy priority for leftist President Joe Biden.
“Pride month is a chance to celebrate the progress made to advance equality and human rights for LGBTQI+ persons and to honor the activists who had devoted their lives to this effort,” Goldberg said. “It’s not only a priority of our foreign policy, it’s our shared responsibility to ensure that every individual around the world is equally respected, no matter who they are or who they love”:
CTV News, reporting on the festival, also noted that at least one religious figure, Methodist Pastor Lee Dong-hwan, attended the queer festival event. Lee has reportedly faced suspensions from the church for his vocal advocacy for LGBTQI+ rights. Representatives of Korean Buddhism and the Catholic Church also participated in the Pride event to support the community. A CTV report claimed the festival attracted “many foreigners” – including booths representing American, British, and Canadian organizations – and complained of partial nudity being common among participants.
The Korea Herald reported that the festival attracted the largest crowds since before the pandemic, and organizers considered it a success.
In Seoul Plaza, Christian musicians, preachers, and online personalities attended the CTV Awakening event, targeting Korean youth in particular. Surrounding the stage were booths featuring the calligraphy exercises and other social services, such as help in finding a job. Footage of the event, produced by CTV itself, showed families sitting on the grass or strolling while listening to the performances. Korean outlets, including CTV, have not reported any incidents of LGBTQI+ activists attempting to interrupt or disturb the Christian concert at press time:
South Korea has one of Asia’s most sizeable Christian populations, though over half the population is believed to be atheist. About one in five Koreans identify as members of a Protestant church, while about eight percent are Catholic.