The South Africa Paradox: Full Marriage Equality but Social Inequality

South Africa may have marriage equality under the law for LGBT people, as noted in Wikipedia, but many LGBT people still remain horrifying targets of violence.

Some lesbians have been murdered and have become the victims of "corrective rape" where patriarchal men who find themselves threatened and "not good enough" seek to punish the women that they sorely misunderstand.

Unfortunately, the police ridicule the women and few cases have resulted in convictions, as reported in this BBC article.

After a petition of 170K people all over the world calling for an end to "corrective rape" following Noxolo Nkosana's murder in April 2011, the S. African justice department is beginning to deal with these hate crimes and considering harsher sentences for crimes in which the victim's sexual orientation is a factor.

Unfortunately, S. Africa courts got way ahead of the people's understanding and acceptance of differences in sexual orientation. At least in the U.S. we are building a slower but potentially more lasting, steady consensus that at least LGBT people are worthy of respect and dignity before most of our courts move forward with full relationship recognition in the form of marriage.