Opinions on same sex marriage

The opinion page is designed to give South Africans of all flavours the opportunity to air their views on the legal recognition of same sex marriages. To add your opinion piece to the fray, e-mail it to willie@equality.org.za

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project retains the right to accept, decline and possibly sindicate material submitted for publication on the website.

The Baroness

"As the Baroness, I am amazed that anyone could ask me if I supported the legalisation of gay and lesbian marriages. Does anyone believe that there is the remotest possibility that I might say "no"? I have always believed that the "right to openly love someone" is the primary and most fundamental right due to any person. Even the thought of "debating" the issue is sheer lunacy. Equality means just that, so let's get on with it, and ignore, nay scorn, what certain religious leaders have to say on the subject. This is the 21st century, and it is time that we all embraced it - with all its modern diversities and wonders."

Baroness Coral von Reefenhausen is the host of Below the Belt, a adult variety show on SABC 3, which will be presenting a revealing view of the gay community in South Africa during Pride month. Photo and opinion courtesy of the Below the Belt website and Underdog Productions.

Straight Talk: The Joke's on You!

By Rowan Cloete - Actor, television presenter and musician. First published on www.mambaonline.com - South Africa's most stylish gay lifestyle portal.

So you wanna get married huh? With the imminent legalisation of same-sex marriages (thanks to our liberal constitution) the reality of tying the knot/getting hitched/taking on the ball and chain is a looming reality. Well, whoopdidoo!

Consider that the modern heterosexual marriage has a worse track record than our Health Minister. Not to mention that South Africa is particularly afflicted with that most foul of modern day STD’s – Divorce. It thus might be prudent of me to rip off those rose-coloured spectacles, stomp on them and let you in on the real deal about marriage.

The history of marriage is steeped in deeply religious dogma, and the general idea has evolved from the notion of two people figuratively becoming one. This spiritual union normally pre-empted the literal (although these days this process has been reversed) through a sacrament made to whatever deity was in fashion at the given time/place.

What has been downplayed in the era of Elvis Chapel Drive-thru’s and DIY divorces is that implicit in the vows undertaken by star-struck lovers is a covenant of death. Death? Yes, death. The part that goes "until death do us part". Remember? This is pretty much a recurring thread in many of the flavours of marriage practiced around the world. In fact, in some remote spots in modern-day India it is still the practice to perch a widow on the funeral pyre next to the hubby’s corpse for a religious barbie and the whole village is invited! But I digress.

There's also loads of gushy, peachy-sounding stuff in the vows. Lovely words that sound good at the time but go from better to worse as soon as the budget payments for the honeymoon trip reflect on the bank statement. That's when you settle into a lifelong cycle contending for the duvet and finding pubes on your razor (which is part of the fine print you neglected to peruse).

So the question is: why in the name of Mary, Jesus and Joseph do straight people get married (and eventually divorced)? Let's see…

1. You're in love with your high school sweetheart (the captain of the netball team) who believes that having sex out of wedlock is the ultimate no-no. You've spent the last 3 years dreaming about tapping that ass…and you’re not leaving empty-handed.

2. You're the ultimate couple, and people keep on telling you so. You compliment each other in career, looks, and basically marriage is just a damn good PR move - the ultimate accessory is the ultimate partner. Accessories however have a way of falling out of fashion. (There’s always a smaller, better, and more expensive model on the way.)

3. In drug/alcohol-crazed haze you think "fuckit, let's get married" and off you tear to the closest pastor that will marry you for 50 bucks. Hey, why not? We can get divorced on Monday, right?

4. You got her pregnant and her dad's got a shotgun to your balls. He's gonna blow your nuts off (no, not like that!) Unless off course you do the right thing… The right thing for whom? Hmm.

5. You’re scared she’s going to leave you if you don’t marry her. You’ve been co-habiting, (god, what are we now, pigs?), and she’s been threatening to leave you if you don’t make an honest woman out of her. This is of course rooted in her fear of being deserted after wasting her blooming early 20-something flower on your raggedy ass. “Why fix it if it ain’t broken?” you ask yourself. But there’s nothing as comfortable as a broken-in bicycle…

6. Everyone else is doing it! Don’t ever underestimate the sheer weight of your mother, aunts, grannies and cousins demanding to know when the wedding bells will be a-ringing. And when all your friends now come in twos (and higher numerals when the kids start sprouting) it takes a real man to resist peer pressure in its ultimate form.

7. Ahh, bless. You found the one. You've actually landed what is in your opinion your soul mate, and in the face of overwhelming statistics you are going to be the exception. You get along like Fred and Ginger, and after a year she's putting out the same as she did the night you met! As a rule you feel like a bowl of peaches and cream around her. Even better, you have that whole trusting openness thing going which lets you explore parts of yourself you never knew were there - in every way. So, 4 years down the line, what went wrong? Well, throw together a little domesticity, a touch of middle-class life stress and add a dash of workplace impropriety, and divorce seems like a much more streamlined solution than actually fixing the problem.

Even though we might turn around, shake our fists at the heavens and insist that we didn’t mean it, the fact is, through a solemn promise we create a new reality for ourselves when we say those vows - and it's out there for the universe to bear witness to. Even though we have the option of a trade-in when the motor plan runs out, the fact remains that you can never walk away from the experience unchanged. That, in a sense, is “until death do us part” - death to the person you've were before, hello to the new, married you. Next step is “Hi, I’m Bob, and I’m a divorcee!” (So très chic…). There’s no going back.

So if you really want to get married, don’t look at the straights for how to do it. The only thing we’ve perfected is getting horribly, acrimoniously divorced. I do believe there is tremendous value in choosing someone to share this glorious experience of being alive and human with, but you have an opportunity to create a new context for a dated, defunct, demented and dying institution. Forget trying to complete each other. It’s an exercise in futility. If you can’t do it for yourself, you can’t do it for him/her. Screw becoming one - if you’re going to shoot for teddy bears at the carnival of life, two guns are better than one. Be happy and complete, and choose somebody who is happy and complete. Then be happy and complete together.

Très simple, no?

Giving marriage a good name

By Guy Berger. 22 September 2003.

I suppose folk get married for faith and fear, and not purely for fun. That is, folk who can get married. There ain’t legal weddings for those gay people who want to tie the Big K.

But for those who can marry, and who do, this is a big-business, serious thing to get involved in. First, there’s the weight of history and rites of passage behind the whole shebang. Second, it means taking on commitments before The Law. Hovering around the pleasure, there's the concomitant authority, recognition and set of legal stipulations.

So marriage - in at least the Western sense - is about more than love. It's also to do with regulating relationships – or, at least, instituting an enforceable framework for permanence. Terms for union, terms for separation.

Presumably, we make such an arrangement partly because - love notwithstanding - we fear our fickleness, we’re afraid of fate interfering. We seem to feel that a social, as distinct from individual, contract is called for.

Marriages, then, are made so as to define mutual rights and obligations, including of new persons born through the compact. Of course, getting married also means a union that enjoys (or endures) a certain status in regard to social life, medical aid, inheritance, taxation, travel and the like.

But all these broad parameters should also not point us to stereotyped images of man, wife, tuxedo, white veil, as prelude to two kids and dog.

The fact is, of course, there is a plurality of arrangements that exist under the rubric of marriage. There are various traditional and religious marriages already recognized in South Africa. Polygamy is part of the permissible. There is a rich range of customs, ceremonies and cultural variations.

Thus, in an era where marriage entails multiplex patterns of individuals and families, and where we praise ourselves to the skies for our human rights advances, what possible case could be made for excluding gay people from being married?

Aside from frumpy religious rationales, which should not be imposed on non-believers, what other reason/s could there be? What claims by families or governments could be so compelling as to overrule the rights of adults to enter a community of practices between same sex people and conclude a marriage agreement if they so wish?

Answer: There are none. Not a single reason to refuse permission to gays who would be wedded.

In short, let our courts not tarry, let gay people marry.

It is long overdue for South Africa to show respect for the equality of human beings before the law. It is way past time that we should end an anachronistic form of discrimination, and eliminate the frustration of many.

Who knows, such a liberation may even enable everyone to reduce the fear factor and deepen the fun quotient when we decide on a legal linkage for a lifelong partnership.

*Guy Berger is head of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University.