Today the South African Parliament overwhelmingly approved legislation recognizing gay marriages — a first for a continent where homosexuality is largely taboo.
By a vote of 230-41 with three abstentions, the National Assembly passed the Civil Union Bill, a compromise that resulted from months of heated public discussion. Both traditionalists and gay activists have criticized the measure, and there have been warnings that it might be unconstitutional.
African National Congress veterans heralded the bill for extending basic freedoms to everyone and equated it with liberation from the shackles of apartheid.
“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,”
-Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told the National Assembly.
But a Christian lawmaker, Kenneth Meshoe, said it was the “saddest day in our 12 years of democracy” and warned that South Africa “was provoking God’s anger.”
One church leader in Nigeria denounced the move as “satanic,” reflecting the views on a deeply conservative continent where some countries are debating constitutional amendments to ban same sex marriages.
But gay rights groups in Europe hailed South Africa as a shining example of progressiveness.
*Associated Press
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