Desmond Tutu’s daughter loses church licence after marrying female partner
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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