Same-sex marriage bill passed in South Africa

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The South African parliament overwhelmingly approved legislation Tuesday recognizing gay marriages -- a first for a continent where homosexuality is largely taboo.\nBy 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.\nAfrican National Congress veterans heralded the bill for extending basic freedoms to everyone and equated it with liberation from the shackles of apartheid.\n"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.\nBut 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."\nOne 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.\nBut gay rights groups in Europe hailed South Africa as a shining example of progressiveness.\nThe vote in the National Assembly followed months of heated public debate, and its outcome was expected, given the congress's huge majority. It now has to go to the National Council of Provinces, which is expected to be a formality, before being signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki.\nThe bill provides for the "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnized and registered by either a marriage or civil union." It does not specify whether they are heterosexual or homosexual partnerships.\nBut it also says marriage officers need not perform a ceremony between same-sex couples if doing so would conflict with his or her "conscience, religion and belief."\nSouth Africa recognized the rights of gay people in the constitution adopted after apartheid ended in 1994 -- the first in the world to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.\nThe bill was drawn up in order to comply with a Constitutional Court ruling in December 2005 that said existing marriage legislation was unconstitutional for discriminating against same-sex couples.\nThe court gave the government a Dec. 1 deadline to change the laws, saying that otherwise, same-sex marriages would be legalized by default.\n"In order to give effect to the Constitutional Court ruling, same sex couples have to be allowed to marry so that they can enjoy the status, obligations and entitlements enjoyed at the moment by opposite sex couples," Mapisa-Nqakula said.\nThe Roman Catholic Church and many traditional leaders objected to the use of "marriage" saying this denigrated the sanctity of traditional marriages.\nTo try to ease some of these concerns, the drafters of the bill allowed both religious and civil officers to refuse to marry same sex couples.\nGay rights groups criticized this "opt-out" clause, saying they should be treated the same as heterosexual couples.\nBut in general, they hailed the new measure as a "rejection of previous attempts to render lesbian and gay people as second-class citizens."\n"It demonstrates powerfully the commitment of our lawmakers to ensuring that all human beings are treated with dignity," said Fikile Vilakazi of the Joint Working Group, a national network of 17 gay and lesbian organizations.\nHomosexuality is still largely taboo in Africa. It is illegal in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana and most other sub-Saharan countries. Even in South Africa, gays and lesbians are often attacked because of their sexual orientation.\nDenmark in 1989 became the first country to legislate for same-sex partnerships and several other European Union members have followed suit. In the United States, only the state of Massachusetts allows gay marriage. Vermont and Connecticut permit civil unions, California grants similar status through a domestic-partner registration law, and more than a dozen states give gay couples some legal rights.