W00t!
The controversial Civil Union bill was passed by 230 votes to 41.The legislation was introduced after the Constitutional Court ruled last year that the existing laws discriminated against homosexuals.
The ruling African National Congress ordered all MPs to turn up and vote for the bill, despite the opposition of church and traditional leaders.
The bill provides for the "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnised and registered by either a marriage or civil union".
The bill is indeed controversial and gay rights activists have pointed out that officials don't HAVE to perform ceremonies if they are religiously opposed to the contract. And of course the Christians are pissed, claiming this will be a threat to democracy. Eh, whatever. The ANC demanded all MP's to vote for this bill based on the constitution, the first constitution in the world to address discrimination based on sexual preference.
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The African National Congress tends to be progressive about these things. Desmond Tutu was speaking from the same tradition when he brushed off the question of gay ministers by saying that in his church, nobody cared if preachers were gay or straight.
Wow, that makes me proud to be an American. Land of the free, shining beacon of liberty. And vastly more repressive than a country that just a few short years ago was practicing apartheid.
"A threat to democracy."
It boggles the mind.
Fantastic! Now we only have to catch up to Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands, South Africa, and Spain. I think that's still doable.
this is the hotness...
my partner and i were listening to a debate on npr about the whole thing (i kept having to tune out for stupid work ish) and it's pretty amazing...
this south african author was making a point about how, considering how recently anti-miscegenation laws were taken off the books, the south african people have a very strong sense of what human rights are...
and how restricting people's abilities to marry whomever they choose is a restriction of those human rights...
and how, in countries where the majority of the people take their rights for granted, that majority is oblivious to what human rights really are - and, hence, find it easy to sign them away.
powerful stuff... thanks for covering it, sami!
This is incredible -- and I think it ought to serve as a harsh reprimand to all the ignorant Americans who think we're so much more "advanced" than other countries. Americans, I think, tend to think of South Africa as being less civilized, because it is poorer, and (though few Americans would openly admit this) because it is predominantly black. And yet South Africa apparently has a better grasp of human rights in this context than we do.
Shame on my country. South Africa, I salute you.
Before everyone starts cheerleading for the SA government, it might be important to remember that one societal law bill being passed doesn't outweigh the repressive political laws that they've enacted over the past few years, or their disgraceful and reprehensible record on AIDS.
All the more reason to be happy and excited that they understood exactly what was at stake with this law and passed it.
Not that I'm American by any stretch, but I used to think of South Africa as the world's only African first-world country. It took me a while to read about just how poor it was and how AIDS was ravaging it (and then another while to read about Mbeki's HIV denial).
Could you be a little more clear on the repressive political laws Law Fairy?
I am a South African and I wonder if you are perhaps confusing us with Zimbabwe.
Speaking of repressive laws, isn't America the country were habeas corpus no longer applies at the whim of its president?
Sure, the South African government is racist (unsurprisingly) but it represses more through incompetence than deliberation. A fine point perhaps, but important one nonetheless.
Also South Africa is not "poor" its GDP is the 18th in the world and the GDP per capita is 55th in the world, The per capita GDP incidentally is higher than that of Russia (62) Turkey (75)or China (87). So South Africa is not poor, the wealth is merely poorly distributed.
Sadly, and partly due to the governments failed BEE policies SA is 120th on the HDI index, (highest in Africa btw.)
But,if South Africa can encourage citizens of the United States of America to be slightly less arrogant and bigoted that would be to the good.
Isn't it fantastic? The rumour was that lots of ANC MP's were not happy with it (people are quite conservative here), but they were reminded that many gay and lesbian people fought for freedom with heterosexual people, and that it is simply not fair that only one group will get equal rights. But they had no choice anyway, I think. This had to be passed before December, or so the Constitutional Court ruled.
Hooray for us! It is not a popular decision for the majority of SAfricans though, lots and lots of sexism and homophobia and rasicm still around. Lots.
Wow! another South African. Wow!
To me the interesting thing was all ANC MP's were ordered to vote for it, the christianist parties ordered theirs to vote against and the others to vote their consciences.
Now what is really interesting that there are 400 seats in the national assembly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Assembly_of_South_Africa
There were 230 votes for and 41 votes against. The ANC has 279 MPs. Missing at least 39.
So what were the remaining 129 MP's doing? Sleeping? (Seriously some MP's do that during sessions)
The ANC demanded all MP's to vote for this bill based on the constitution, the first constitution in the world to address discrimination based on sexual preference.
This isn't strictly true, as discrimination based on sexual orientation is considered analagous to discrimination based on sex, in section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms, and it was on this basis that gay marriage was legalised here.