Most South Africans come from backgrounds that frown on homosexuality, says the African Christian Democratic Party.
“That is a fact. We cannot support a situation where a minority is attempting to impose its will on the majority,” the ACDP’s mayoral candidate for Cape Town, Pauline Cupido, said on Friday.
She was responding to what she called a “vicious personal attack on her by certain members of the homosexual lobby”, following her pronouncement at the launch of the ACDP’s election campaign that her party will seek to turn Cape Town into a God-friendly rather than a gay-friendly city.
This, she said, is in line with the values of the ACDP and the vast majority of the city’s inhabitants.
Nobody can force a Christian to think in terms of the “humanistic values” in the Constitution.
“The vast majority of South Africans come from backgrounds that frown upon homosexual conduct,” Cupido said.
“Remember that we, as the ACDP, were the only ones to vote against this Constitution. We do not agree with certain things [in the Constitution], we do not support the homosexual lifestyle,” Cupido told the Mail & Guardian Online on Friday. “That is unbiblical, while we have biblical principals.”
Helen Zille, national spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance, said: “Let me put this very simply: our Constitution gives all South Africans the right, freedom, to choose their own partner.”
Dawn Betteridge, director of the Triangle Project, which aims to develop a non-discriminatory society and now challenges homophobia in South Africa, said: “The ACDP is in opposition with its own name, which contains ‘democratic’. There is nothing democratic about excluding a certain group.”
Replied Cupido: “We are not discriminating. I accept the right for every party to have their own values. We will not compromise on our principles.”