Good news kids: yesterday on 11/30/2006, gay marriage was legalized in South Africa! That makes it the first country in Africa to recognize same-sex marriage as being legal.
Interestingly enough, this is the backlash from an extreme conservative move in 1994, when S. Africa drafted a new constitution after apartheid. It seems they included a clause which made same-sex union illegal. The blatant discrimination gave gay leaders plenty of fodder to fight and fight hard to repeal the law. The acceptance of the legislation happened a year ago, and it is FINALLY being implemented. There you go - almost thirteen years later and they did it. It's worth it to keep on this issue.
Unfortunately, this region is still very conservative in their general outlook towards homosexuality, so don't get the mindset that you should don your rainbow-flag wife-beater and Elton John sunglasses and take your next big OUT -N- PROUD party to S. Africa. I doubt you'd be well received. However, I do think this should serve as a reminder to us that if we take the very logical point of fact that a ban on gay marriage is pure, unadulterated discrimination, we can surely begin to set our own laws in place.
Keep your chin up! We can do this!
xoxo,
Ms.
No comments:
Post a Comment