- Home
- Gay Local Community
- South Africa: Red Tape 'Strangling' Gay Marriage
South Africa: Red Tape 'Strangling' Gay Marriage
- By News Hound
- Published 06/8/2007
- Gay Local Community
- Unrated
News Hound
Your servent relentlessly hunting for interesting news stories around the world.
View all articles by News HoundSouth Africa: Red Tape 'Strangling' Gay Marriage
Helen Bamford
Cape Town
Nearly six months after gay marriages were legalised in South Africa, some Home Affairs offices were still using forms with the words "husband" and "wife" on them.
Red tape also appears to be putting the brakes on same-sex weddings, with religious ministers sometimes having to wait months to become marriage officers.
Home Affairs officials were put on the spot yesterday during a discussion on the Civil Union Act which raised issues such as whether state-employed marriage officers should be allowed to refuse to preside over same-sex marriages and whether individual priests could apply, even if their denomination did not approve.
The discussion was hosted by gay rights group the Triangle Project at the Victoria Junction Hotel in Green Point with speakers from Home Affairs, the University of the Western Cape's constitutional law professor Pierre de Vos and prominent gay lawyer Andrew Massyn.
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba was scheduled to speak but cancelled due to illness.
Gene Kritzinger, a director in the Department of Home Affairs, said 562 same-sex marriages had been registered between last December and April.
Nineteen applications had been received from ministers and pastors to become marriage officers, seven of which had been approved to date.
Seventeen churches had applied and been accepted by the Department of Home Affairs as being able to host gay marriages.
Kritzinger said of the 700 state marriage officers, only 36 had declined to officiate at same-sex marriages.
Gordon Oliver, a minister of the Cape Town Unitarian Church, said he had applied to Home Affairs to become a marriage officer two days after the bill was signed into law on December 1.
However, some 40 phone calls later he had not even received an acknowledgement of his application.
Oliver had to turn away couples wanting to marry, including a woman who might not have long to live after being diagnosed with a chronic illness.
One gay couple described their marriage at a Home Affairs office as a "cold and sobering" experience.
Derrick Fine, who married Andile Gidana earlier this year, said he first spent a day and a half trying to get through on the phone before being told to go into the Home Affairs office in person to apply for a date.
When they arrived the official neither greeted them nor offered any explanation of what they should do, he said.
"The first question was 'which is partner A and which is partner B'."
Fine said the forms for the marriage licence still said "husband" and "wife", which he had to scratch out.
"And all the little icons in the office are also of men and women."
Cape Town magistrate Ingrid Freitag questioned whether it was necessary for gay couples not only to have to present photographs of themselves but also have their fingerprints taken at their wedding ceremony.
Kritzinger agreed having someone in a "nice dress with black fingers" was not ideal and promised to look into it.
Professor Pierre de Vos, who spoke on how gay marriages had come about, said that during the public hearings on the Civil Union Act Patrick Chauke, chairman of the National Assembly's home affairs portfolio committee, asked him why gays even wanted to get married.
"I told him it was for those little pictures on the mantelpiece. They are deeply symbolic and make you feel like you belong to society."
He said the first draft of the bill only provided for "civil unions" not "marriage".
"We argued that that was not good enough. It doesn't have the same ring and you probably wouldn't get the same amount of presents."
Cape Argus
http://allafrica.com/stories/200705280404.html
Cape Town
Nearly six months after gay marriages were legalised in South Africa, some Home Affairs offices were still using forms with the words "husband" and "wife" on them.
Red tape also appears to be putting the brakes on same-sex weddings, with religious ministers sometimes having to wait months to become marriage officers.
Home Affairs officials were put on the spot yesterday during a discussion on the Civil Union Act which raised issues such as whether state-employed marriage officers should be allowed to refuse to preside over same-sex marriages and whether individual priests could apply, even if their denomination did not approve.
The discussion was hosted by gay rights group the Triangle Project at the Victoria Junction Hotel in Green Point with speakers from Home Affairs, the University of the Western Cape's constitutional law professor Pierre de Vos and prominent gay lawyer Andrew Massyn.
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba was scheduled to speak but cancelled due to illness.
Gene Kritzinger, a director in the Department of Home Affairs, said 562 same-sex marriages had been registered between last December and April.
Nineteen applications had been received from ministers and pastors to become marriage officers, seven of which had been approved to date.
Seventeen churches had applied and been accepted by the Department of Home Affairs as being able to host gay marriages.
Kritzinger said of the 700 state marriage officers, only 36 had declined to officiate at same-sex marriages.
Gordon Oliver, a minister of the Cape Town Unitarian Church, said he had applied to Home Affairs to become a marriage officer two days after the bill was signed into law on December 1.
However, some 40 phone calls later he had not even received an acknowledgement of his application.
Oliver had to turn away couples wanting to marry, including a woman who might not have long to live after being diagnosed with a chronic illness.
One gay couple described their marriage at a Home Affairs office as a "cold and sobering" experience.
Derrick Fine, who married Andile Gidana earlier this year, said he first spent a day and a half trying to get through on the phone before being told to go into the Home Affairs office in person to apply for a date.
When they arrived the official neither greeted them nor offered any explanation of what they should do, he said.
"The first question was 'which is partner A and which is partner B'."
Fine said the forms for the marriage licence still said "husband" and "wife", which he had to scratch out.
"And all the little icons in the office are also of men and women."
Cape Town magistrate Ingrid Freitag questioned whether it was necessary for gay couples not only to have to present photographs of themselves but also have their fingerprints taken at their wedding ceremony.
Kritzinger agreed having someone in a "nice dress with black fingers" was not ideal and promised to look into it.
Professor Pierre de Vos, who spoke on how gay marriages had come about, said that during the public hearings on the Civil Union Act Patrick Chauke, chairman of the National Assembly's home affairs portfolio committee, asked him why gays even wanted to get married.
"I told him it was for those little pictures on the mantelpiece. They are deeply symbolic and make you feel like you belong to society."
He said the first draft of the bill only provided for "civil unions" not "marriage".
"We argued that that was not good enough. It doesn't have the same ring and you probably wouldn't get the same amount of presents."
Cape Argus
http://allafrica.com/stories/200705280404.html
