The daughter of one of South Africa’s leading religious figures has lost her church licence after marrying her female partner.
Mpho Tutu-van Furth said she was forced to forfeit her right to officiate as the church does not recognise gay marriage.
She married her wife Marceline Tutu-van Furth, a Dutch national, in The Netherlands last December.
“My wife and I meet across almost every dimension of difference. Some of our differences are obvious; she is tall and white, I am black and vertically challenged,” Tutu-van Furth said in an interview with City Press.
“Ironically, coming from a past where difference was the instrument of division, it is our sameness that is now the cause of distress. My wife and I are both women.”
Her father, Desmond Mpilo Tutu, has supported Mpho, having attended the wedding celebrations with his wife.
The Anglican bishop has expressly supported gay marriage, and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role as an opponent of the apartheid.
Tutu recently compared Uganda’s anti-gay laws to nazism and apartheid, stating he would not worship a “God who is homophobic.”
Same-sex marriage was legalised in South Africa in 2006.
Words: Andrew Headspeath
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