SOUTH AFRICA broke an important regional taboo yesterday by becoming the first African country to authorise same-sex marriage.

The nation joined the handful of countries allowing the practice after the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of gay weddings and ordered parliament to amend marriage laws within a year.

South Africa will become the fifth country in the world to permit same-sex marriage, behind the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Canada; but the decision is not only at odds with the views of the vast majority of its own citizens, but also the rest of Africa, where homosexuality remains largely taboo.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, President Mugabe frequently attacks homosexuals and lesbians as “worse than dogs and pigs”. Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, has outlawed homosexual sex, declaring it to be “against the order of nature”. He recently ordered detectives to find gays and “lock them up and charge them”.

In a landmark ruling, the Johannesburg-based Constitutional Court ordered that the definition of marriage be changed from a “union between a man and a woman” to a “union between two persons”.

The current constitution, one of the most liberal in the world, was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination against gays and lesbians. The country’s highest court, the Johannesburg-based Constitutional Court, ordered the Government to stop delaying legislation that would allow two Pretoria-based white Afrikaner lesbians, Marie Fourie and Cecelia Bonthuys, to marry.

Last year the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the couple, declaring that the current law was discriminatory. But they discovered that they were still unable to register for a church wedding and petitioned the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court judges ordered the Government by ten votes to one to amend the country’s marriage laws within the next 12 months. The dissenting judge had wanted the decision to be implemented immediately.

The court said that if parliament did not act the legal definition of marriage would be automatically changed to include same-sex unions.

Gay and lesbian groups had mixed views on the ruling. “Why wait 12 months?” asked Thuli Madi, from the lesbian and gay rights group, Behind the Mask. “If Parliament does not do anything in 12 months, we can marry anyway, so why not make it effective now?”

Others, however, were not so sure. Leading churches, in what is still a deeply conservative country, have called for a referendum on the issue. The African Christian Democratic Party called for an amendment to the Constitution that would nulify the ruling.

Homosexual sex was decriminalised in South Africa only seven years ago and prejudice against gays is rife. This year a minister from the Dutch Reformed Church was defrocked because of his homosexuality.

Elsewhere in Africa opposition to homosexuality is even greater. Anglican leaders across the continent have threatened to split from the Church of England over the issue of gay marriages. In Sierra Leone last year a lesbian rights activist was raped on her desk and stabbed to death. In Somalia militiamen frequently stone gays. In Namibia gay men and lesbians are forced by tribal councils to marry and have children.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

President Mugabe of Zimbabwe

“It (homosexuality) degrades human dignity. It is unnatural and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs.”

President Museveni of Uganda

“Look for homosexuals, lock them up and charge them . . . God created Adam and Eve. I did not see God creating man and man”

President Nujoma of Namibia

“See to it that there are no criminals, gays and lesbians in your villages and regions”

President Obasanjo of Nigeria

“Such a tendency is clearly un-Biblical, unnatural and definitely un-African”

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