History
Sexual intercourse between men was historically prohibited in South Africa as the common law crimes of "sodomy" and "unnatural sexual offences", inherited from the Roman-Dutch law. A 1969 amendment to the Immorality Act prohibited men from engaging in any erotic conduct when there were more than two people present. In the 1970s – 1980s, LGBT activism was among the many human rights movements in the nation, with some groups only dealing with LGBT rights and others advocating for a broader human rights campaign. In 1994, male same-sex conduct was legalised, female same-sex conduct never having been illegal (as with other former British colonies). At the time of legalisation, the age of consent was set at 19 for all same-sex sexual conduct, regardless of gender. In May 1996, South Africa became the first jurisdiction in the world to provide constitutional protection to LGBT people, via section 9(3) of the South African Constitution, which disallows discrimination on race, gender, sexual orientation and other grounds. As of 1 January 2008, all provisions that discriminate have been formally repealed. This included introducing an equalised age of consent at 16 regardless of sexual orientation, and all sexual offences defined in gender-neutral terms.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In South Africa
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)