Talk:Same-sex marriage in South Africa

message: I can't find any confirmation that same-sex marriages are legal in South Africa. The date of July 2002 mentioned was that of a court decision that one same-sex couple should receive the financial benefits of a married couple (see ). Google yields several pages from later dates that state that SA does not yet have legal recognition of SSMs. Can someone quote an authority on this? -- Kimiko 09:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Same-sex marriages are not legal in South Africa. I can't quote any authority but myself (since I live here). However, the courts have ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage, and has directed Parliament to amend the law. So SSM must be legalised, but it is very unpopular, both among voters and (possibly) parliamentarians, so they seem to be putting it off as long as possible. --Taejo | Talk 06:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: My understanding is that the court ruled that the legislature must change the law within one year's time to include same-sex couples or the court will change the law itself. Liamdaly620 17:32, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Which would be absolutely, totally unprecedented in any country in the history of mankind, for any court to write new words into a law, instead of a democratically elected body.  "Democracy" is now dead, welcome to "Activist Judicocracy", with threats and ultimatums. 17:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, this is hardly unprecedented, and fully within the court's authority to interpret laws according to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, which is fairly clear on there being no discrimination based on gender. Now, the role of the legislature is not overridden in this, as the legislature still controls the most important power of all: The authority to amend the Constitution. So, I don't know who you are (you chose to refuse to associate your name with your comment), but you evidently know little about the workings of democracy, and so your claim that it is dead rings somewhat hollow. — Impi 10:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Courts of law have been interpreting law, and deciding between conflicting laws, for at least a few hunderd years.  thirty-seven 07:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Each paragraph now seems to be referenced, and in terms of quality I can't see any particularly sloppy mistakes, so I'm removing the cleanup/citation tags. Arvedui 22:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, a fair amount of black South Africans are very socially conservative, and are not in favour of it. I'm not sure why the article focuses only on white South Africans, because it's pretty clear that if only white South Africans were opposed to it, it would have been law long ago. — Impi 10:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Agreed, I've been meaning to make that change for a while - but was waiting for time to do a major rewrite (that doesn't look really necessary anymore). Most South Africans are probably (and regretably) homophobic. Certainly most are anti-SSM. --대조 | Talk 16:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: early discussion

message: Removed the startling assertion that homosexuality was legal in apartheid-era South Africa. Rubbish; sodomy was a criminal offence until 1998. Also removed the POV statements that homosexuals were accepted, and that the 2005 decision was met with much opposition - it was, but it was also met with rejoicing from gay and lesbian South Africans and those who support sexual equality. 82.108.5.59 12:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically, no.  Marriage is defined (in part) as a sexual union.  As such, if it is made legal the acts that define it must also be made legal. - 24.10.95.220 08:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your saying anal-sex defines (in part) gay marriage? I'm skeptical.  Brentt 00:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sodomy?

message: The lead section needs more context and content. --70.39.133.138 12:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Context

message: I do not see what an photo of male genitals has to do with this discussion and it makes it impossible to send it to people who would be interested if I know they will access it at work.  I would edit it out but I can't figure out how.  Also, this is not just a male issue.Dsrtwrendsrtwren
:This was vandalism and has been cleaned up. You can learn more about how you can clean up vandalism by checking out the Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 21:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  why the photo at the beginning? 

message: I moved material to this section from the 2002 ruling section.  It doesn't really have anything substantive to say about reaction to the ruling; instead, it talks (a little bit) about general receptiveness of the country to the gay lifestyle.  I think this needs to be either rewritten to include actual quotes or summaries thereof.  It could also simply be moved to Gay rights in South Africa. -- Beland 13:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social reaction 

message: Is this merge of Civil unions in South Africa happening or what? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It should. —Nightstallion (?) 12:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge of civil unions? 

message: Can a man and woman enter a civil union in South Africa? Carolynparrishfan 12:30, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An excellent question, and one that the courts will probably have to resolve. Orginally, the government bill had differentiated "civil partnerships" (same-sex unions) from "domestic partnerships" (opposite-sex unions). However, since the draft bill did not include the word "marriage" for same-sex couples, as the Constitutional Court ruling required, the government was forced to change the term "civil partnerships" into "marriage partnerships" at the last minute. Meanwhile, the "domestic partnerships" in the original legislation somehow morphed into "civil partnerships" during the amendment process, even though other parts of the bill remained exactly the same. This means some parts of the legislation now refers to "civil partnerships" in terms of "two persons of the same-sex", while other parts still say "two persons" (regardless of gender). So...it's not exactly clear. Eventually, they're going to have to harmonize all these marriage laws. South Africa now has three totally separate and contradictory marriage laws, which is the cause of great confusion. --24.69.176.155 03:33, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opposite sex? 

message: I wondered if anyone would ask. (Note that I have just updated the table with the 2010 statistics.) The problem with StatsSA's numbers is that they disagree with numbers from other reliable sources about SSM in South Africa. Primarily this NY Times article from July 2010:
Which doesn't tally with the numbers that only show 2,460 marriages or civil partnerships by the end of 2010. There was another article that I can't find now that said about 1,000 same-sex marriages had been carried out in the first year after the law passed which, if it were true, would be even more at odds with the statistics.
That being said, I think I may know the reason for the difference (as regards the NY Times article, anyway): the Stats SA figures only reflect marriages of South African citizens and permanent residents, and not marriages solemnized in South Africa between two foreigners. (See page 1 of the report, "Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) publishes marriage data on citizens and permanent residents that are collected through the civil registration systems of DHA.") Marriages between foreigners are permitted but are not recorded in the National Population Register, and don't appear in these statistics.
The other problem is that a Civil Union Act marriage/civil partnership is open to opposite-sex couples as well as same-sex couples, so these statistics aren't actually the number of same-sex marriages conducted. However most opposite-sex couples do still marry under the 1961 Marriage Act.
If we included a note in the table mentioning these two points that would work for me, I guess. Also, in October of this year South Africa had a national census and when that data is released it will hopefully give us more accurate information about how many same-sex married couples there are in the country. - htonl (talk) 09:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, certainly let's include the NYT numbers in the statistics section; more information to help readers get a sense is good. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:53, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Odd statistics