public hearings are gay insult platform

By Nthateng Mhlambiso (BTM Senior Reporter)

October 13, 2006: This week marked the end of the public hearings on Civil Unions Bill that took almost a month for the South African public to finally engage in same-sex marriage debate.

But the hearings were overrun by disdains at homosexuals, particularly in the last one that took place in Cape Town.

Glenn de Swardt of Triangle Project lashed at the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee chairperson, Patrick Chauke, for not precluding and curbing insults from the general public, especially from religious groups.

“It is difficult to see prejudice if you are part of it”, de Swardt spoke out.

Triangle Project complained that religious fundamentalists constantly swore at gay and lesbian people and associated them with moral degeneration, and Chauke didn’t intervene.

“It is particularly disconcerting that the chairperson appeared oblivious to the extent of virulent prejudice that was being articulated”, asserted de Swardt.

OUT LGBT – Wellbeing in Pretoria also feels that the public hearings on the Civil Union Bill turned out to be a platform for hate speech, rather than a place to gather public opinion. “We felt very much insulted at the hearings and there was little that was done from the side of the portfolio committee to stop that kind of behavior”, Fikile Vilakazi, advocacy officer of OUT said.

Chauke rejected such allegations and behaviours. “In every meeting I attended, I tried to put rules that people should not respond to what other people were saying, that they should not clap hands and that they should not insult each other, and these rules were respected in most hearings that I attended.”

He however explained how some misinterpretations broke out. “When people expressed their feelings about civil unions, some gay people got offended. Even gay people also started fights, for instance they said in one meeting that they will teach heterosexual couples how to raise kids as they do not know how to”, Chauke said.

But on the contrary, de Swardt said that Chauke didn’t know what he was talking about. “We were there and we experienced those insults and he (Chauke) did not do anything to stop it.”

“We berate the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs for not protecting gay and lesbian people from exposure to such blatant prejudice and for failing to offer the necessary counseling and support services to individuals who were traumatized as a result of such exposure”, Triangle Project said in a statement.