Politics
Thursday August 17, 2006
Appeal for Amendment Banning Gay Marriage Rejected in South Africa
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Peter J. Smith
PRETORIA, South Africa, August 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Calls for amending the South African Constitution to protect traditional marriage were thoroughly rebuffed by the chairman of a parliamentary committee preparing a bill legalizing same-sex “marriage”.
Committee chair Patrick Chauke dismissed the appeals of the opposition African Christian Democratic Party to ban same-sex “marriage”, insisting that the government will not deviate from advancing a bill to legalize same-sex “marriage” mandated by the Constitutional Court.
"We believe the right thing to do is to amend the Constitution to make it clear that marriage is between a male and a female,” said ACDP party leader, Rev. Kenneth Meshoe on Wednesday.
However, Chauke informed reporters that the measure amending the Marriage Act will be presented to the cabinet in September, and will lay before Parliament for consideration by October. Chauke predicts the measure gain passage in Parliament before December, the deadline mandated by the Court.
Currently South Africa’s Marriage Act defines marriage as "the union of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of others". However, the Constitutional Court declared in December 2005 that the law violated Section 9 of the Constitution prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and ordered the government to change the marriage law to include same-sex couples by December and threatened it would take action if the government failed to amend the law.
Ironically, the government at the time was appealing the Constitutional Court to reverse a 2004 Supreme Court of Appeal order to open up marriage to same-sex couples claiming that it had usurped Parliament's authority to make laws.
The 2005 Court decision was the latest in legal victories for homosexual activists since sodomy was decriminalized in 1998, same-sex adoption legalized in 2002, and recognition of domestic partnership benefits for homosexuals was granted in 2003.
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.