Tutu

"African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence."
--Wangari Maathai.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote this letter to the Constitutional Assembly in response to the National coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality's campaign to support the inclusion of sexual orientation in the Equality Clause in the Bill of Rights [in the South African Constitution of 1996].

Dear Members of the Constitutional Assembly

Re: The Retention of the Sexual Orientation Clause in the Bill of Rights

Within the Church of Christ, and indeed amongst adherents of other faiths, there is much debate and difference of opinion on the question of homosexuality. The theological and ethical issues are complex and far from resolved.  It is indisputable, however, that people's sexual nature is fundamental to their humanity.

The apartheid regime enacted laws upon the religious convictions of a minority of the country's population, laws which denied gay and lesbian people their basic human rights and reduced them to social outcastes and criminals in their land of birth. These laws are still on the Statute Books awaiting your decision whether or not to include gay and lesbian people in the "Rainbow People" of South Africa. It would be a sad day for South Africa if any individual or group of law-abiding citizens in South Africa were to find that the Final Constitution did not guarantee their fundamental human right to sexual life, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

I would strongly urge you to include the sexual orientation clause in the Final Constitution.

God Bless You

Yours sincerely

(signed) Desmond Tutu

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God - if there is this love among you, then we will know that you are my disciples."

*from Sex & Politics in South Africa edited by Hoad, N., Martin, K., Reid, G.