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Gays
Reap Rewards Slowly in Post-Apartheid South Africa (continued)
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Although there is more open public support for the gay community in post-apartheid South Africa, there are still those who are opposed to the whole idea of homosexuality. “We would condemn the practice of homosexuality as we would condemn the practice of adultery,” said Reverend Terry Rae, General Secretary of the Baptist Union of South Africa. “We encourage our churches to minister to people in need or in trouble-if a person was a practicing gay we would try to minister to that person and help that person.” Lesbian activist and academic Ann Smith tells of homophobia she experienced at home. Her neighbors, discussing a man and his lesbian daughter, said to her, “Well, he is such a horrible racist man and his daughter's a pervert-that'll serve him right.” “My father was a liberal white man and his daughter's a pervert,”Smith told them. Smith, who teaches courses on “queer theory”at University of the Witwatersrand, said that what bothered her most was that the neighbors expressing these homophobic views were women and Indians, of two traditionally oppressed groups themselves. While voices of dissent seem to demand a call to gay activism, the country has more pressing issues to resolve. South Africa is still subject to the problems of a developing nation. An influx of immigrants from neighboring African nations like Mozambique and Zimbabwe has prompted a xenophobic reaction from black workers who fear losing their jobs. Less than a quarter of the nation's 40 million residents are employed, and a quarter of the working population earns only $90 US dollars or less a month. The African National Congress, the party that piloted the country to democracy, is accused of corruption, education standards remain abysmal, and 1,500 South Africans are infected with the AIDS virus every day. In this environment many of South Africa's gays and lesbians have chosen to wage a gradual campaign for future rights like gay marriage. Presently, weddings like that of Funeka and Nokwanda are not recognized by the state. And yet, on the eve of South Africa's second multi-party elections in June, leading gay activists aren't pushing the ANC to change the laws. “We don't think that (marriage) should be an election issue,” said Kevan Botha, legal advisor to the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality. “Election issues must be around poverty and the important issues of reconciliation.” Botha said that the Coalition plans to wait until the election has passed to try cases like the right to legally wed. “I think we're going to win the (marriage) case but I don't think it's going to be a walk-over,” said Matthew Chaskalson, lawyer for the Center for Applied Legal Studies. Chaskalson will be one of the attorneys who eventually takes the case to court. He said that the Coalition's strategy of carefully timing gay rights cases and choosing sympathetic plaintiffs might have made his job easier. “There was something to be said for the strategy of choosing the easiest case and building on it,” he said. Unlike their more vocal American counterparts, South African homosexuals have a history of either quietly aligning themselves with the ANC's anti-apartheid cause or staying out of politics all together. |
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