Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe entered into a power-sharing government with his chief rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, after violent elections in 2008. Now the two sides have agreed on a draft constitution, according to AFP, which got a peek at the draft on Monday. And along with limiting presidential terms and stripping the executive of prosecutorial immunity, the draft document would ban same-sex marriage.
The draft, according to the AFP report, states that “persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other.”
The same-sex marriage issue became a cudgel used by the ruling party against the opposition during negotiations over the constitution, LGBT rights advocates have said. Mugabe attempted to put the opposition on the defensive by alleging that they were trying to include provisions legalizing same-sex marriage in the constitution. His government also stepped up harassment of LGBT activists in the country, including raiding the offices of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe.
Public Eye’s Kapya Kaoma recently wrote that the anti-LGBT legislation is being crafted with help from the American conservative group American Center for Law and Justice, which opened an office in Zimbabwe in 2010. The group’s executive director, Jordan Sekulow, met with Mugabe’s vice president, John Nkomo, Prime Minister Tsvangirai, and other politicians during a visit to the country.
AfterMarriage 