Korea Upholds Antigay Military Law

The South Korean constitutional court has ruled to maintain a law that bars the nation's military personnel from engaging in any same-sex relationships or homosexual behavior.

In a 5-4 decision Thursday, the court ruled that the need to maintain discipline was more important than extending individual freedoms or gay rights, according to Agence France-Presse.

The prohibition is written in the 1962 military code. Thursday's ruling is mainly in line with a 2002 decision that punishing homosexuality in the military was appropriate, according to the Korea Herald.However, the decision does not adhere to recommendations made by the National Human Rights Commission, which said the rule was a form of discrimination.

"The court seems to have spent the past few years in vain, making no progress at all," an official of Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights said Thursday. "Even the judges who judged the clause as unconstitutional did so on the premise that homosexual relations caused the public's aversion and disrupted military discipline."