Religious hate speech is still hate speech
Fundamentalist Christians, and the slippery money-making pastors who stir up their prejudices and passions, often say outrageously hateful things about gay men and lesbians under the pretext of...
View ArticleThe curious case of the pastor punished for honesty
“Prejudice,” warned former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo in the judgment of Hoffmann v South African Airways, “can never justify unfair discrimination”. This means that a church can never justify...
View ArticleQwelane: still a homophobe, but his challenge to hate speech clause is sound
Jon Qwelane, South Africa’s Ambassador to Uganda (that bastion of respect for the human dignity of all), is a self-confessed homophobe. He also used to be a spectacularly unaccomplished columnist. His...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Uganda: why quiet diplomacy is a devastating betrayal of gay men and lesbians...
In recent months both Uganda and Nigeria passed legislation that, in effect, criminalises a sizeable section of its population. The legislation aims to use the criminal law to punish fellow citizens...
View ArticleRights and law: The untold, human stories
Oppressive legal rules and regulations can have a devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people. Conversely, ostensibly emancipatory legal rules and regulations – including rules and regulations...
View ArticleGay Cabinet ministers: So what’s the big deal
Several media outlets reported this week that Lynne Brown became the first openly lesbian cabinet Minister in South Africa after President Jacob Zuma appointed her as Public Enterprises Minister on...
View ArticleThose intolerant of bigotry do not invite bigots to speak
One of the favourite mantras of some free speech fundamentalists is that “the cure for bad speech is more speech”. But sometimes it is counter-productive, even wicked, to continue debating an issue...
View ArticleMike van Graan and AFAI never loved us
Mike van Graan, the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute (AFAI) has sent me the following response to the Blog I wrote last week. He says it will be published on AFAI’s website. I publish...
View ArticleWhy do dominant religions so often get a free pass from courts?
Why do religious beliefs and practices – especially the religious beliefs and practices of powerful and dominant religious groups – so often get a free pass from society and the courts? Should certain...
View ArticleOn the “snake pastor” and limitations on freedom of religion
Last week the Commission-With-The-Long-Name (also known as the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Minorities) announced it will investigate...
View ArticleWhy does the law allow marriage officers to discriminate against same-sex...
Earlier this year a United States federal judge jailed Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk, for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Davis was rightly held in contempt of court after the US...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hiding in a cave
When that well known Afrikaans “singer” Sunette Bridges made blatantly racist comments and I posted a Blog on it, several readers of this Blog argued either that racism was justified or that it was an...
View ArticleOn “Spud”, laughter and “political correctness”
Imagine the following scenario. Two decades from now an author writes a book taking an affectionate look at life during the wonderful but crazy days of farm invasions in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The...
View ArticleIs the reasonable person a homophobic prude?
Is it reasonable to be a prude who thinks of sex as always being somewhat dirty and depraved, as something that must remain hidden and covered up at all cost? More pertinently, is it reasonable not to...
View ArticleThe silence of Justice Mogoeng
Does a judge have a duty to provide reasons when he or she expressly disagrees with aspects of a colleagues judgement when he or she sits on the same bench as that colleague? Does it matter when the...
View ArticleWhat a load of dangerous nonsense
NOTE TO READERS: I wrote this piece based on information gleaned from the Lead SA Website and other documents sent to me. Primedia has pointed out (see full letter here) that although a version of the...
View ArticleA positive duty to protect sexual minorities
There is a worrying ambivalence at the heart of our government’s attitude towards the protection of the life, human dignity, right to quality and the protection of bodily integrity of sexual minorities...
View ArticleMy heart says hate speech but my head is not sure
Sometimes a case comes along that pulls one sharply in diametrically opposed directions: one’s heart in one direction and one’s head in another. Such a case is that of South Africa’s ambassador to...
View ArticleWhat shall we do about the Reverend?
Reports that a Cape Town pastor has called gays and lesbians drug addicts and child molesters and said that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu will burn in hell for supporting the LGBT community will...
View ArticleTime to stop paying traditional leaders?
Zulu monarch King Goodwill Zwelithini earlier this week reportedly criticised people who engaged in same-sex relationships, labelling them “rotten”. “Traditionally, there were no people who engaged in...
View Article
