No apartheid for gays, either

WHEN SOUTH AFRICAN lawmakers voted Tuesday to legalize same-sex marriage, the former icon of unjust government reminded the world that its break from colonial apartheid wasn’t just about changing the power structure. It was about conferring broad civil rights within its borders.

What makes the vote by South Africa’s Parliament unique is that it stems not from the gradual social liberalization that sparked similar moves in such countries as Spain and Canada but from its very constitution. Adopted in 1996, that document drew its inspiration from a newfound hope of rights for all and, as a result, specifically prohibited discrimination against homosexuals.

Under court order to follow its own constitution, Parliament was forced into overriding old marriage laws and extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, thus becoming an unlikely global beacon of progressiveness. The vote is all the more extraordinary for its contrast with much of Africa on the question of homosexuality, which is illegal in most sub-Saharan countries.

It’s regrettable that, unlike other countries that have legalized same-sex unions, South Africa will allow civil officials to opt out of performing gay-marriage ceremonies. It should not be up to government functionaries to determine whether a nation’s laws are to their liking; it’s simply their job to carry out the laws. Time might cure what Parliament didn’t. As same-sex marriage becomes more common in South Africa, and people see it does nothing to hurt the nation or heterosexual marriage, objections by officials may decline.

South Africa is far from a perfect democracy, and government action alone, in South Africa as elsewhere, cannot end discrimination. Some of its leaders, notably President Thabo Mbeki, have been less than enlightened in their views on homosexuality and AIDS. (Only recently has his government made antiretroviral drugs more widely available.) But on Tuesday, the nation showed that it has shed the worst of its past and is growing into a rights-based democracy.