The Ugandan Parliament has overwhelmingly voted to amend the country’s Constitution to outlaw gay marriage and impose criminal penalties on same-sex couples who wed, a spokesperson for the legislature said on Thursday.
”Parliament has adopted a proposal to amend the Constitution so as to criminalize same-sex marriages,” said spokesperson Bernard Eceru, adding that 111 MPs were in favour of the amendment, 17 against and three abstained in Wednesday’s vote.
The amendment, part of a package of proposed constitutional changes being considered by lawmakers, says that ”marriage is lawful only if entered into between a man and a woman”.
In addition, it specifies that ”it is unlawful for same-sex couples to marry”, according to Eceru. Specific criminal penalties for offenders are not included but are to be laid out in revisions to the Ugandan penal code at a later date, he said.
The package of amendments, which includes the controversial removal of presidential term limits, is expected to win easy final passage in Parliament after a third reading of its components expected in the next two weeks, officials said.
In addition to the gay-marriage ban and lifting of term limits, lawmakers also voted in favour of another amendment making Swahili the second official language of Uganda after English.
Legislators who backed the proposal said it will make communication easier between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, the members of the East African Customs Union that plan to form an East African Federation by 2012.
Swahili is already an official language in Kenya and Tanzania. — Sapa-AFP