Government has proposed a new Marriage Law which will amalgamate all the existing Laws governing marriage and other unions. Family Action South Africa has made a submission which is the third one in the last few years.
Please go here to read the proposed new Bill. We were reasonably hopeful of having the deadline of 31st August extended but this has not been conceded. Thus then, even at this late hour we have once more added our voice to those of countless others concerned at the changes envisaged to the traditional concept of marriage. Perhaps an opportunity will come around again for further submissions prior to presentation before Parliament and God willing, we shall then take up the cudgels again!
Please feel free to submit something of your own or to use parts of our submission should you feel moved to do so. But above all, let us continue to pray!
The email addresses of the persons to whom commentary should be forwarded are:
See here below the Family Action SA Submission to Department of Home Affairs on 31 August 2023
RE: DRAFT BILL ON THE ENVISAGED NEW MARRIAGE ACT
Dear Mr Malakate and Ms Molefe
Family Action South Africa is an organisation firmly committed to the defence and nurturing of the family institution. It fulfils its mission through campaigns, mailings, lobbying, advocacy and the like. Our basic contention is that a strong family institution is the bedrock of an upright, morally strong and God-fearing society. Most of contemporary society’s social ills can be attributed to the constant whittling away of the family institution through so many evils – amongst which we can name abortion, pornography, drugs, alcohol, sexual promiscuity etc. etc…
It is within the perspective of the vital needs of the family, that we have read and noted the draft Bill, which amongst other things, provides for the amalgamation of the various laws governing marriage and other unions.
Ideally, this Bill should be scrapped in its entirety as current legislation (without critical analysis here), is adequate. There is no compelling need to synthesise the three Laws governing marriage and other relationships, especially when the amalgamation reduces the traditional concept of marriage to merely “one amongst other unions,” abolishing at the same time, husband-wife terminology for that which is gender-neutral! This essentially demeans and degrades marriage as God ordained it.
Knowing that the scrapping of this Bill is highly unlikely, and that raising a host of objections will be futile, we will limit our concerns regarding the envisaged Marriage Act, to two areas.
The first involves the very nature, and traditional definition of Marriage.
We refer here to the immemorial understanding of marriage, especially as defined and practised in the Christian world. In this sense, marriage has always been understood as the monogamous and lifelong union of two persons of the opposite sex (one man and one woman), the primary purpose of which is the begetting of children. Such a conception of marriage has in large part played a fundamental and indispensable role in guaranteeing a stable and ordered society.
The family institution, defined at times as the “mother cell of society,” is the vital organism and glue which holds society together. Wherever it is subject to the assault of the multiple fronts of anti-family legislation now so prevalent in the world, the resulting societal collapse and dysfunctionality has been catastrophic. Our country is no different. For this reason, and to avert sliding further down this slope, it is vitally important that marriage not be re-defined to include the politically correct and disordered partnerships which are, or can be ably catered for under the existing provisions contained in the Civil Union Amendment Act. Such partnerships are a corollary of the state of our society and their definitions and inclusions expand at the same pace as the sexual revolution advances. Marriage, on the contrary, as traditionally defined, leaves little scope for confusion and ambiguity!
So first and foremost, we would earnestly plead, in the interests of the health and well-being of the family institution, and hence our country, that the definition as contained in the original Marriage Act be upheld and not sacrificed at the woke altar to please activists and vociferous minorities!
Secondly, it is our well-grounded fear that this vital Marriage definition will not be upheld in the new proposed Bill. Consequently, it is of major concern to us that the draft bill fails to explicitly provide for marriage officers to freely and legally refuse to solemnise unions that violate their consciences, regardless whether this stems from moral, religious or any other personal conviction.
It is, from our perspective, indispensable therefore, that a clause explicitly providing for “conscientious objection” on the grounds alluded to above, be included as an integral part of any final Bill which comes before Parliament.
The role and primary purpose of the State should be to facilitate good order and the well-being of the Nation and its inhabitants, by fostering in its laws and policies, eternal and perennial truths for the ideal functioning of civil society. There is no finer institution for the accomplishment of this end than the traditional family model, which in reality, precedes the State.
There are many types of potential unions, especially where a liberal, irreligious and egalitarian climate entertains and fosters everything contrary to the rights of Almighty God, Natural Law and solid immemorial traditions. These various unions, so contrary to “Marriage” as outlined above and traditionally understood, should not be considered for inclusion under a “marriage” definition. There are obviously legal ramifications for such unions and accordingly, their legal regulation can be catered for elsewhere. There can be no such thing as “Marriage Equality!”
To touch on polygamy – the fact that it exists should not be reason to entrench it, and facilitate even further its extension. Polygamy should be rather tolerated as an existing, temporary “wrong,” – a violation of Biblical precepts – and all just and charitable means employed to gradually rid society of it; through preaching, moral suasion, prayers etc. Its very existence complicates all discussion around marriage. In accommodating a future for polygamy, is it now to be made a right for all – removed from its narrow current acceptability in customary traditional male African society? Nowhere is it recognized as a positive element in a country’s national fabric!
The principle should be considered, that if one wants to embrace a relationship that is not of the highest, noblest and finest traditions, one cannot expect to have such unions finely regulated, legally accommodated and mishaps catered for, in the same way that the State should afford protection to man-woman family relationships, whose contribution to the good of society is incontestable! Numerous are the studies which prove the great value to a Nation – both economically and sociologically – of those unions embracing the traditional concept of marriage and family! In our country, evidence of the contrary position is daily before our eyes!
Your sincerely
Bernard Tuffin(Mr)
President
Family Action South Africa