South Africa to have Gay Marriage Bill by years end

[zcflint09]

Interesting article. Good to see more worldwide tolerance of GLBT marriage and it further goes onto show how radically far the US is behind the times.

http://365gay.com/Newscon06/08/080106saf.htm

Also, South Africa has a specfic provision in thier post-apartied Constitution that sets apart equal rights for GLBT people in thier nation. Kind of funny that Americans and people world wide decreed as enormously bigoted would turn around in only 15 years to legalize gay marriage, yet even after slavery, Japanese concentration camps and Gitmo, Americans like to think of themselves as a "bastion of freedom" in the world.

[GodlessBiker]

1. Woohoo!

[pepperbear]

2. It's sobering to think that S.A. is ahead of the U.S. n/t

[moose65]

3. Every time I read about this...

I find myself saying incredulously.. "South Africa?? SOUTH AFRICA??" I guess the name of that country still conjures up images of oppression, and to think that they are so far ahead of the U.S. just boggles my mind. More power to you, South Africa. You have obviously learned something from your past, and I tip my hat to you! Any day now, maybe the US will follow suit....

[tabatha]

4. tolerance, ubuntu

I think it is because the more tolerant people (who understand victimization more than any) are in power. It is also because of the tradition of "Ubuntu" practices by the Xhosa (Mandela, Mbeki) amongst others.

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are".


Xhosa society was closely knit, bound by intense ties of loyalty within the family, and the chiefdom and the nation as a whole................These attitudes began with the family and extended upwards and outwards. ...............'Children treat their parents with respect, and accept their advice, even when they have reached maturity and are masters of their own households', Alberti wrote."

" `But the intensity of affection and benevolence within the family and clan was extended', as Alberti observed, `to a general love of one's fellow men'...............The impoverished were never denied assistance. It was a duty to share food with others, whatever the circumstances...............One of the conspicuous examples of Xhosa hospitality was the consistently kind reception they gave the survivors of shipwreck. Only after the first war between white colonists and Xhosa was there a change of attitude and even then, as William Hubberly found, there were people who were willing to assist him."

"These hospitable responses of the Xhosa were strongly affected by the emphasis they placed upon a value common to the Bantu speakers and called ubuntu, humaneness. Its instinct was the preservation and stability of the whole, and the Xhosa appear to have evolved an especially acute perception of it. Its working within their codes was notable even in war, when woman and children were never killed."

Excerpted from the book "Frontiers" by Noel Mostert, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992

[One Sweet World]

5. Go S.A.

The way I see it, the US isn't 100 percent free until ALL Americans have equal rights under the constitution. It is very ironic that we are trying to democratize the world in ways that only the US "sees" it.

I applaud South Africa and the many other countries that will be sure to follow suite. At least we will have a plethora of places to move should things continue to get worse in our homeland.