Beware of the young criminals

[mahnmut]

Remember the "No more hugs" post? It was about US. Now look at this. It's about SA:

Mixed emotions about new Act on sex
Teenagers under the age of 16 caught kissing, touching or rubbing up against each other can be criminally charged.

The new Sexual Offences Act, signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki last week, has criminalised kissing, or any light sexual behaviour among people under the age of 16 - even if it is consensual.  ...

Welcome to the Utopian Communist State of South Africa. I feel ashamed to be an ANC member...

Comments

take the good with the bad

[madisonmassage.livejournal.com]

Every coutnry/government has their good points and their bad points.

I have a related question for you. It seems to me that the christian churchs in africa seem to be far more conservative than those in europe and america. I know that the africa branch of the anglican church was threatening to split off over gay preists..

I would be interested in any observations or comments you have on the topic.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I'm not too competent about the Anglican church of SA. But here are my impressions. Maybe its relative conservatism has something to do with the fact that there are many Anglo-Catholics within its jurisdiction. But then, the SA anglican church is regarded as one of the more "tolerant" anglican branches in Africa as a whole.

And there's also the SA church-of-England which is like the Evangelist belt in US. It's separate from the Anglican one but exhibits a significant influence too.

However, the influence of the Church on people's perceptions and mentality, no matter of which ethnic community of SA they are, has never been too profound. And here's the big difference with US, which was not clearly a secular state as was South Africa. There are many reasons. The local traditions are always altered through the specific prism of each ethnic community. Even the famous Desmond Tutu (who won the Nobel peace prize) has not contributed much to the Church to become a dominant factor in social life, like the case was in Canada until a couple of decades ago. Probably because people had other, far more urgent problems to deal with at that time ;-)