Ordinary South Africans, as well as our courts, seem to have a schizophrenic attitude towards marriage. On the one hand many people – as well as our courts – seem to revere the traditional institution of marriage. From a young age boys and girls are told that getting married would be one of the ultimate milestones [...]
Posts under ‘Dignity’
The Windows of Heaven (and your wallets) are open!
One of the (many) reasons why I am not a fascist or a Stalinist is because I am rather worried that people might begin to think that I am a repressed and self-hating homosexual who is trying to hide his true self by embracing rightwing Christian fundamentalism. If I ever wavered in my commitment to [...]
The return of fake morality?
Because my parents were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, I had to attend the church service and Sunday school every week. What fun! The dominee (minister), speaking in the ridiculously pretentious accent learnt at the kweekskool (seminary), usually warned in apocalyptic terms against the evils of sex before marriage (or sex with an Engelse meisie or a black [...]
Boiled chickens pretending to be plumed peacocks
Suddenly there is a lot of (artificially whipped-up) hysteria about the media doing the rounds amongst certain politicians. They want to muzzle the media by introducing a Media Tribunal “with teeth” and are also hell bent on passing the Protection of Information Bill which will criminalize much of what goes for investigative journalism in this [...]
Isn’t it all a bit too easy?
Isn’t it all just a bit too easy? Last week the four former Free State University students known as the Reitz Four were found guilty on a charge of crimen injuria by the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court for making a video in which they humiliated 5 workers who were probably old enough to be their mothers. [...]
Sleepwalking through an empty life
Sometimes I wonder whether we would all not have been far happier if we had known absolutely nothing about what was happening in our world and if we were unable to remember – even for one week – how we had been wronged and hurt by others.
What if we had not been able to remember how the apartheid [...]
Ten countries…. and counting
Argentina became the tenth country (and the first in South America) to provide full marriage equality (including the right to adopt children) to same-sex couples late on Wednesday night. There are now about 250 million people worldwide living in jurisdictions which provide for marriage equity. Here is the list:
2001 Netherlands
2003 Belgium
2005 Spain
2005 Canada
2006 South Africa
2008 Norway
2009 Sweden
2010 [...]
Christine, give them hell!
Multinational steel retailer, Bohler Uddeholm Africa, is probably going to regret the fact that it ever employed Chris(tine) Ehlers. Hopefully the company will also, at some point, begin to regret that its management is filled with people who act like bigots. Christine Ehlers, who was fired as a sales assistant after her employers discovered that [...]
The ANC, human dignity and freedom of the media
When Tony Blair became leader of the British Labour Party he set out to befriend media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch owns The Sun, the biggest tabloid newspaper in Britain, as well as Sky News. In previous elections The Sun had supported the Conservatives and Blair understood that he needed the support of The Sun (topless page [...]
Time for rethink on traditional leaders
Millions of South Africans live much of their lives according to customary law (instead of having their lives regulated via the common law). During the apartheid era, customary law was viewed as second class law. We were told that the law that counted was statute law and, more importantly (for most – white – lawyers and [...]
