Cape Town’s gay community will on Friday protest outside Media 24’s offices in reaction to a ”shocking homophobic article” written in the Sunday Sun, Cape Town Pride said.
Spokesperson Ian McMahon said in a statement the protest was organised in reaction to ”a shocking homophobic article” written by John Qwelane in his column in Media 24’s Sunday Sun, published last Sunday.
The protest will highlight the attack on the constitutional and human rights of gay people and what McMahon referred to as ”Qwelane’s blatant hate speech”.
McMahon said a petition, calling for a retraction and apology to gay people, will be handed to the Media 24’s managing director.
Qwelane wrote: ”There could be a few things [about which] I could take issue with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, but his unflinching and unapologetic stance over homosexuals is definitely not among those”.
He added that he could only pray that politicians would one day have ”the balls” to scrap the sections in the Constitution that sanction gay and lesbian marriages.
Qwelane added that soon people would also start demanding the right to marry animals. Alongside the column appeared a cartoon of a man and goat kneeling before a clergyman as they were pronounced ”man and goat”.
Qwelane told the Times that he stood by his words.
”I stand by my column. Whatever happened to freedom of speech in this country?”
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has received complaints about the article and is looking into the matter.
Meanwhile, Gayspeak, a gay and lesbian online magazine, has called on the public to rally their support and join the protests in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Spokesperson Coenie Kukkuk said although complaints have been made to the press ombudsman and the SAHRC, there is a need for the masses to come out in full support.
”These institutions are largely toothless watchdogs. We have people on the net, we have email, we have Facebook and other sites. We can loudly protest,” Kukkuk said. — Sapa