Government questioned on gay rights position

Tony Leon, the DA's foreign affairs spokesman, has submitted questions to foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in parliament, asking why South Africa did not support a declaration by the United Nations General Assembly on Human Rights Day in December 2008 calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Leon said he had also asked whether the government had considered the ramifications of this action for its reputation for upholding the values enshrined in the constitution and promoting the freedom of South Africans and others.

"Our failure to translate our domestic constitution and legislation into international support for human rights is clearly motivated by a desire not to offend some of the most retrogressive and authoritarian countries in the world," Leon said.

"This contradiction between what we practise at home and preach abroad is entirely and unhappily consistent with our role call of dismal votes on the United Nations Security Council during our ill-starred tenure there which ended in December 2008."

On Thursday the Department of Foreign Affairs said it supported the UN declaration calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, but had not not got round to signing it.

South Africa's ambassador to the UN, Dumisani Kumalo, suggested on December 18 that the declaration had not been signed for fear of offending African governments who opposed it. Only six of Africa's 53 nations signed it.

• This article was originally published on page 4 of The Mercury on January 12, 2009