South Africa's Parliament on Tuesday approved the controversial
Civil Unions Bill, which provides for same-sex marriage, the first
African country to do so and one of only a few in the world.
The bill provides for opposite-sex and same-sex couples of 18
years or older to solemnize and register a voluntary union, either
by marriage or civil partnership, the South African Press
Association (SAPA) reported.
Same-sex couples can be married by civil marriage officers and
those religious marriage officers who consider such marriages not
to fall outside the tenets of their religion, the SAPA said.
Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said all forms of
discrimination and prejudice, including homophobia, should be
rejected.
The National Assembly, in passing the Constitution in 1996,
recognized the fact that South Africa's commitment to the noble
principle of equality should be the cornerstone of the new society,
the SAPA said.
"In breaking with our past, therefore, we do need to fight and
resist all forms of discrimination and prejudice, including
homophobia," Mapisa-Nqakula said. "We should also condemn violence
against same-sex couples fueled by hatred as recently observed here
at home and in other countries."
Like in other African countries, homosexuality is often regarded
as unacceptable and taboo in South Africa, where a number of
harassment and murder cases have reportedly linked with hatred
towards homosexuality.
The controversy and debate triggered by the bill had been
rigorous and extensive in South Africa, with almost all opposition
parties objecting the move.
Vehemently opposed to the bill was African Christian Democratic
Party leader Kenneth Meshoe who warned that voting in favor of
same-sex marriage was a rejection of God's laws and those who did
so would face divine wrath.
South Africa boasts for its 1996 Constitution for the advantage
in safeguarding human rights, democracy and equity after its long
painful history of race-based oppression and discrimination.
Although the bill has been passed, the debate was by no means
over and South Africans should continue to engage each other on
such matters in a constructive way to lead the country towards "the
kind of society that we all fought for as embodied within our
Constitution," said Mapisa-Nqakula.
"The challenge that we shall continue to face has to do with the
fact that when we attained our democracy, we sought to distinguish
ourselves from an unjust painful past, by declaring that never
again shall it be that any South African will be discriminated
against on the basis of color, creed, culture and sex," the
minister said.
(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)
