The South African Law Commission (SALC), which draws up most of South Africa's bills before they are discussed in Parliament, is in the process of reworking the Marriage Act, and the public (that is, us) is being invited to make comment. The aim of the new legislation would be to institute pseudo-marriage for homosexuals and "partnerships" for homo- and hetero-couples.

God's Pattern

God Himself ordained marriage (Genesis 2:20-25). Marriage is complementary - male to female with no hint of sexual sameness between the parties. It is designed to characterise a covenant that cannot be broken, with unconditional sacrificial love on the part of the husband, and respect and caring from the wife. This union of man and wife in a marriage represents Christ's relationship with His Church. The marriage of God and His people is a theme that runs throughout the whole Bible.

As Christians we dare not sanction or promote a false representation of God and His Beloved, Christ and His Church, whether it is in the form of man-with-man or woman-with-woman sexual relationships or any unmarried, and therefore uncommitted, heterosexual "shack up" relations. Marriage is the very image of Christ and the Church and we are being called upon to defend it.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."
Ephesians 5:25-27

Current SA Marriage Law

Since November 2000, the marriages of a husband with more than one wife can be recognised as long as at least one of the partners is following the customs of his/her community. Prior to this, in SA law marriage was defined as "the legally recognised voluntary union for life of one woman and one man to the exclusion of all others while it lasts".

For a civil marriage, under the current law, people must have agreed to marry, be legally competent (i.e. not too young or mentally incapable), be of opposite sexes and may not be too closely related e.g. brother and sister.
Married people have a mutual obligation to financially support each other and a duty to be sexually faithful. Married people also share all the property they have and accumulate (unless they have an antenuptial contract).

Marriage can only be ended by:

the death of one of the spouses;

divorce on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown or where one of the spouses is mentally ill or continuously unconscious; or

dissolved if a spouse is missing, presumed dead.
"'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery- but I am talking about Christ and the church."
Ephesians 5:31-32

The South African law was influenced by a Biblical worldview. The 1996 Constitution is based on a Godless worldview. The Constitution does not protect marriage.

Revising Marriage

The SALC has issued a questionnaire that suggests that the model they are aiming for is far more radical than anything adopted in any other country. Two highly controversial suggestions are:

Married people would be allowed to enter partnerships with others (in addition to their spouse!).

Adults would be allowed to enter legally-binding partnerships with children or minors!

The ultimate aim of this type of legislation is not only to institute "marriage" for members of the same sex, but also to devalue real marriages to the same level as any other shack up sexual or non-sexual relationship. All the obligations, privileges, special status and protection that marriage has will be given to any other imaginable type of relationship. To show how far this could be taken, consider this quote from the SALC questionnaire:

"It could therefore be argued that any legislation which is introduced should extend to domestic relationships where people live under one roof without necessarily having an intimate or sexual relationship. Examples are parents moving into the houses of their children or asking children to move into their house, friends or siblings living together, students sharing a house… There are reported incidents of domestic partnerships where one of the partners is already married to someone else... Should there be any age requirement, and if so why?"

The implications of groups of people being able to form legally recognised quasi-marriage type relationships with friends of the same or opposite sex, children, their parents or with sexual partners other than their spouses spells the legal and political death of marriage.

The deadline for responding to the SALC questionnaire is 30 November 2001.

"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good."
Titus 1:15-16

One of the major problems with "partnerships" overseas has been that many heterosexual couples who "live together" use this easy option instead of marrying and it is leading to the further breakdown of family structures and commitment. More and more children will be born into these uncommitted and temporary partnerships. If couples were committed to staying together they would marry and not enter "partnerships".

Benefits For All

The purpose of marriage benefits is to encourage marriage as it is the permanent (or at least indicates that intention) and most stable building block of society, and provides the ideal home for children to grow up in and become good citizens.

If partnerships are legally accepted, businesses will be required to give employee benefits such as pensions and medical aid to homosexual "spouses". This is already starting to happen in South Africa. If the benefits of marriage are given to everyone who has someone they can call their partner, this will result in a slow whittling away of all benefits. Companies won't want to subsidise what could turn out to be a series of live-in relationships for all their employees. The people who will lose out will be real married couples.

Benefits are there to aid families that nurture the future generation. They are not some "freebie" for everyone who engages in sex or lives with someone. Overseas "partnerships" are often abused for the benefits. Many homosexuals with AIDS have registered their friends as "partners" to cover their medical costs. In South Africa, this would result in additional burden on medical aids and fewer families would be able to afford them. Furthermore, people who disagree with homosexuality or "living together" will be forced to subsidise sexual relationships they disagree with.

Effect on Education

Changing the marriage law will affect everyone. School curricula would be required to treat homosexual "marriage" as morally equal to Biblical, heterosexual marriage. In schools, Planned Parenthood is already training teachers to teach children that homosexual behaviour is normal and moral. Children in Grade 6 are being taught about lesbian oral sex and are being directed to radical, militant homosexual lobby groups, like GLOW, for "counselling". Homosexual lobby groups, like Cape Town men, are embarking on public education campaigns to promote homosexuality as a "responsible lifestyle" to
society. They are forcing their values on everyone else.

Adoption

Same-sex "marriage" would further facilitate the adoption of children by homosexual couples and encourage lesbians to have artificial insemination. Research continues to confirm that the family environment most conducive to the well-being of children has both a mother and a father.

Law is Force

Law is not a suggestion, it is force. Official government sanction of same-sex relationships as "marriage" would position the government in opposition to the opinion of the vast majority who believe that marriage should remain as being between a man and a woman. Biblical morality would, in effect, be outlawed. Homosexuals want to make it illegal to speak against any aspect of homosexual behaviour. In Holland, magistrates who refuse to "marry" homosexuals are being threatened with losing their jobs. In Sweden, a pastor was jailed for preaching on Romans 1.

But besides being a legal force against those who disagree, a law like this sends out a message to society and those millions of people who have no Biblical moral standard that homosexuality is good and normal. As lesbian activist, Anna Slabbert, said when she heard about the homosexual co-adoption high court ruling, this gives "validity to gay and lesbian relationships as functional and moral" and sends out "a signal that gay and lesbian couples are recognised as couples".

"Gays", "Gay Relationships"

Are homosexuals and homosexual relationships functional and moral? Let's look at the facts.

One study found that 90% of lesbians had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study. 31% of women in lesbian relationships reported one or more incidents of physical abuse.i A survey of 1,099 lesbians found that "slightly more than half of the [lesbians] reported that they had been abused by a female lover/partner."ii The U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that married women in traditional families experience the lowest rate of violence compared with women in other types of relationships.iii In their book Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence, the authors report that "the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population."

A study of 4340 adults in five metropolitan areas of the USA showed that bisexuals and homosexuals (about 4% of the sample), when compared to other people:

- were more likely to expose themselves sexually to more different bodies (more frequently admitting to participating in orgies and reported larger numbers of sexual partners);
- more frequently participate in socially disruptive sex (e.g. deliberate infection of others, cheating in marriage, making obscene phone calls);
- more frequently report engaging in socially disruptive activities (e.g. criminality and shoplifting); and
- more frequently expose themselves to biological hazards (e.g. ingestion of faeces, fisting, bestiality and sadomasochism).iv

A study in the United States found that the median age of death of married men was 75 and unmarried heterosexual men, 71. By comparison, homosexual men who died of non-AIDS causes, had a median age of death of 42. The study also found that homosexuals were 24 times more likely to commit suicide and had a traffic-accident death rate 18 times the rate of comparably aged white males. The 140 lesbians surveyed had a median age of death of 45 and exhibited high rates of violent death and cancer compared to women in general.v

Pretending that there are no problems associated with homosexual behaviour is a dangerous lie. How do homosexual lobbyists explain away these facts?

The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)'s official NGO status was revoked because some of its members either condoned or promoted paedophilia. The homosexual paedophile organisations included the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). NAMBLA has support in South Africa too.

The top six U.S. male serial killers all practised homosexuality.vi It cannot possibly be a coincidence that such a small percentage of the population could produce its top six serial killers. In fact, as of 1992, eight out of America's top ten most prolific killers were homosexual.vii Furthermore, in 1992 lesbian Aileen Wuornos laid claim to the title of 'worst female killer' in the U.S. with at least seven middle-aged male victims. She topped lesbian nurse team, Catherine Wood and Gwen Graham, who had killed six patients. And the modern world record for serial killing? Held by Russian homosexual, Andrei Chikatilo.
No countries worldwide, and certainly not in the West, accept blood from homosexuals. In most countries, men who have had homo-sex with other men in the past 20 years are prohibited from donating blood, even if they test negative for AIDS.viii Even the most liberal country in the world, Holland, does not accept organ donations from homosexuals.
This is because of the high rate of diseases amongst men who engage in sodomy and other homosexual practices.

Internationally …

Holland and Germany (despite strong opposition) recently became the only two countries in the world that allow homosexual "marriage". Homo-marriage has been vehemently opposed world-wide. In 2001 more than 68 000 Czechoslovakians signed a petition opposing a draft law which aimed to formally recognise homosexual couples. In France, tens of thousands of people marched through the streets to denounce "partnerships" legislation just before the laws were passed in 1998.

Christians in South Africa will need to make a stand!

For more information and resources contact: AFRICA CHRISTIAN ACTION PO Box 36129, Glosderry, 7702, South Africa Tel: (+27 21) 689-4481 Fax: (+27 21) 685-5884 E-mail: info@christianaction.org.za