Gay Marriage Endorsed in S. Africa

Lawmakers Pass Measure in First For the Continent

Lesbian couple Bathini Dambuza, left, and Lindiwe Radebe, right, show off their engagement rings as they pose for a photograph on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. (Denis Farrell - AP)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Nov. 14 -- The South African Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation recognizing gay marriages -- a first for a continent where homosexuality is largely taboo.

By a vote of 230 to 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 rights advocates have criticized the measure, and there have been warnings that it might be unconstitutional.

Veterans of the ruling African National Congress 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.

A Christian lawmaker, Kenneth Meshoe, said Tuesday was the "saddest day in our 12 years of democracy" and warned that South Africa "was provoking God's anger."

His comments reflected the majority view on a deeply conservative continent. Homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana and most other sub-Saharan countries. Some countries also are debating constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriages. Even in South Africa, gay men and lesbians are often attacked because of their sexual orientation.

The outcome of Tuesday's vote was expected, given the ANC's huge majority in the National Assembly. The bill now has to go to the National Council of Provinces, where the vote is expected to be a formality, before being signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki.

The 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 the partnerships are heterosexual or homosexual.

But it also says a marriage officer need not perform a ceremony for a same-sex couple if doing so would conflict with his or her "conscience, religion and belief."

South 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.

The 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.