You may obviously use the Bill and make sure that those rights or marriages are solemnised. I am saying that it's a challenge that we have to take up as a country. There are still marriages that are not even covered, and this Bill begins to attempt to cover some of the areas - Hindu marriages, Muslim marriages. There are a number of marriages that are not yet covered.
Now that is the challenge, and that's what we have agreed upon in the committee. We still need to look at some of these areas because there will be a need to look at the general law that governs marriages as a state. The part of the celebration of weddings and all of that is not done by the state but is done by formations, organisations and individuals who decide how they want to celebrate their marriage in the end. That is not the responsibility of the state.
What you then found during these public hearings was that the majority of people who asked us not to use the word "marriage" were from the church formations, but the church formations themselves were very divided. The SA Council of Churches came forward to say, ``We come from the SA Council of Churches and our position on this Bill is that we don't support it. We don't support the fact that a man must marry another man or a woman must marry another woman.'' Throughout, as we moved around the provinces and coming to Parliament with public hearings, the same applied. The SA Council of Churches then came and said, `You know, those who claimed that they were representing the SA Council of Churches were lying. Here is the position of the SA Council of Churches. Our position is that we agree that same-sex couples should be given the opportunity to marry.''
Now it was very clear from the beginning that we had this problem of church formations being much divided on the issues that we were dealing with. That in itself obviously wouldn't hinder the progress that we had to make as a committee, but other representations also came forward, for example, from the House of Traditional Leaders. All of them were talking about amending the Constitution. How then do you give this right and tomorrow, because you feel very strongly that you no longer agree with this thing, you then decide to amend the Constitution so as not to give that right? I think it's a challenge that all of us, when we speak here, must be able to respond to. We must be able to respond to the right that we have given to this individual, this minority, that we are now so fearful that they will come and change the whole marriage system in the country.
I think we should engage on this so as to understand where our standpoint is, because in our deliberation as a committee, almost every top lawyer in this country, every constitutional expert that we have met in the committee agreed with us that there is no getting away from the rights of these individuals because it's entrenched in the Constitution. You cannot run away. It's something that is given and it's something that we have to live with. [Interjections.] So obviously, you gave it; you were part of the constitution-making process and you were part of the drafting of the Constitution. When we adopted that Constitution, all of us stood there - there is a nice picture outside, showing that you are there - confirming that we will respect and uphold the supreme law of the country which is the Constitution. Without any waste of time, I want to take this opportunity to thank the Department of Home Affairs, the legal team, the Minister for giving that leadership, the state law advisor and the parliamentary advisers, and to thank Parliament in general for the support it has given to the portfolio committee. It was not an easy thing to arrange the resources that were provided, the transport arrangements as well as food and everything that was put together in making sure that, in the law-making process, we move along with our people. It is very important.
People have spoken on this issue, and the more we speak about it, the more people will begin to understand that it is something you cannot ignore. On that note, I really want to thank members of the committee who really gave their best - from the DA, IFP, ACDP and everybody, in fact - in making sure that we listened to the people and came up with something, which is a Bill that we believe will pass constitutional muster. The argument has been that this Bill will not pass constitutional muster, but we believe that the work that was done by this committee confirms that this Bill will go through the Constitutional Court. In its findings, if it finds that this Bill is not constitutional, obviously, there will be a particular process that we must engage in with Parliament. [Interjections.] No, there is nothing wrong with doing that. It can be done all over again, but we have a responsibility as lawmakers, and we cannot run away from our responsibility. If the Constitutional Court finds that whatever we have made is still lacking, we will come back to Parliament again and engage and resolve whatever it is that is not in line with the constitutional requirements to make sure that these individuals that we want to cover, are in fact covered.
I know that some members of the opposition have already declared their position very clearly, and we will support you. We will make sure that if you want to be unionised, you will be unionised. If you want to get married, we will make sure that you get married. That is our responsibility. As you go out as Members of Parliament, go and preach one gospel: These rights are rightly given and are rights that you cannot take away.
We will still listen to the debate and we will still want to engage more on these issues as you speak. Thank you very much, and thank you very much members on that point. [Applause.]