Friday, December 2, 2005

South Africa's Top Court Blesses Gay Marriage:

South Africa's highest court on Thursday recognized the marriage of two Pretoria women and gave Parliament a year to extend legal marital rights to all same-sex couples.

...

The court's judges unanimously agreed that South Africa's 1996 constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, guarantees the right of gay men and lesbians to marry. One justice, in a limited dissent, argued that the law should be overturned immediately rather than within a year.

That delay upset some activists, but both supporters and opponents of the ruling agreed there would be no way for Parliament to avoid approving the required amendments to the law.


South Africa has just recognized gay marriage before the U.S. will. Weren't we supposed to be leading those other, backwards nations in freedom and tolerance? Wasn't that one of the talking points Bush finally settled on to brainwash people into supporting the Iraq war?

Sigh.

At least they included this amusing quote:

"The church respects that people have certain sexual orientations, but we will never accept speaking in the same breath of same-sex unions and heterosexual marriage," Tresoldi said.

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