Equality For All, The Fast Way

South Africa. Once home to some of the most brutal racism on the planet. Apartheid separated people – labelled them good from bad – on no other basis than who they were. Anyone who stepped out of line was tortured, or killed. I had the pleasure of knowing several of the freedom fighters’ spiritual leaders from those days, men and women who tell stories of “necklacing” – or rubber tires around a person’s head, filled with gasoline and set ablaze – and other atrocities.

Today, as we know, great strides of equality have been made in the country, and today the country is getting closer and closer. “Sodomy” was decriminalized in 1998. Gay marriage was officially recognized by the courts in 2004, and affirmed by the Constitutional Court (think: our Supreme Court) in 2005. Today the cabinet gave full approval to marriage equality, the Parliament will vote in October, and meanwhile today the Constitutional Court to allow domestic partners to inherit the property of a deceased partner in the absence of a will.

Equality doesn’t come naturally to everyone in South Africa, however. The South African Fundies tried, without fail, to convince the government to write discrimination into the Constitution, a move that the cabinet rejected flat out. “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,” party leader, Rev. Kenneth Meshoe said Wednesday. Indeed, the same South African freedom fighting friends of mine disinvited me from their church when I came out. How is it that Christians who risked their lives, property and families for the sake of equality in one decade, would so vehemently deny it to others in the next? At least someone over there is thinking clearly.

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08/24/06 05:58 PM
by The Blogger
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