Wyndham Hartley
Businessday Online
Friday, November 10, 2006
Parliamentary Editor
CAPE TOWN - In a major about turn, the African National Congress (ANC) in Parliament's home affairs committee yesterday swept aside opposition objections to the same-sex marriages bill and used its 70% majority to force the use of the terms "civil union" and "marriage" equally.
The approved version of the bill makes the term "civil union" the same as a "marriage" and wherever the one appears, so too does the other. This approval is a direct rejection of the masses of submissions from religious groups objecting to giving homosexual couples the choice of using the term marriage. It is also a direct rejection of traditional leaders who wanted the constitution to be changed rather than the bill approved.
It has been an open secret since the tabling of the Civil Unions Bill, which allows same-sex couples to solemnise their partnerships and to call them marriages, that the ANC is deeply divided on the issue. Many of the ruling party's MPs sympathise with traditional leaders and the religious lobby, who believe that the bill harms the sanctity of marriage.
It seemed the conservative ANC component had been whipped into line, and the substantially altered legislation was forced through its first major hurdle. It must now go to the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces before it can be signed into law by the president.
When the committee began its proceedings yesterday, ANC chairman Patrick Chauke said the committee had done all that it was supposed to do and this included listening to the public in hearings and that now the committee was considering the "finished product".
After the ANC approved the motion of desirability, Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Tertius Delport tried to explain why his party still had serious problems with the bill. ANC MP Kgoloko Morwamoche stopped him, saying the time for debate was past.
Chauke took advice from parliamentary advisers about whether he had to allow debate in order for the procedural requirements for passing the bill to be satisfied.
He then went through the bill, putting each clause to the vote.
Only the ANC voted for the bill, while the DA abstained. The African Christian Democratic Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party asked that their opposition to the bill be recorded.