Marriage Bill threatens faith – Anglican Church

The Church of Uganda has raised red flags over multiple provisions of the contentious Marriage Bill, saying some sections contravene faith and cultural beliefs and could adversely damage the fabric of marriage and family. The Monitor says among the clauses the Church wants streamlined is section 39 of the Bill, which introduces the conversion of marriage from monogamous to potentially polygamous; section 47, which introduces prenuptial and post-nuptial agreement; and section 74, which provides for the dissolution of marriages. On the sidelines of a consultative meeting between church officials and a delegation from Parliament last week, the provincial secretary of the Church of Uganda – Reverend Canon William Ongeng – said some of the sections contradict the values and beliefs of the Christian faith. ‘This proposal of conversion of marriages would undermine the Christian value of the union of one man for one woman,’ he said. Section three of the Bill lists six recognised marriages including the Bahá'í faith, Christian, Civil, Hindu, customary and Islamic marriages. Of these, Hindu, Bahá'í faith and Christian are monogamous while the rest could potentially be polygamous.

Samuel Bakutana, the national president of Fathers’ Union, said: ‘There is this word called inclusion, to ensure all citizens of this country are included in the laws, which ideally makes a lot of sense. My challenge is while we are claiming to bring up inclusion, in practise, we are promoting exclusion. Considering other people does not mean throwing away our biblical guidance, because that would be exclusion of the Christian faith while we are trying to say we are including other faith.’ The church is also opposed to the open provision on the dissolution of marriages. Ongeng said: ‘Section 74 of the Bill introduces the sole ground for the dissolution of marriages as irretrievable breakdown of marriage, which ground is not explained to highlight the scope of what qualifies to lead to an irretrievable breakdown. The Church of Uganda is concerned that this section together with section 73 providing for the dissolution of marriage by mutual consent will make divorce more rampant and hence viewed as facilitating divorce.’ The Monitor notes divorce under the Church is only provided for under very stringent conditions like adultery. The meeting also proposed the addition of the word ‘biological’ to the definition of marriage to address the trend of transgender. The definition of marriage, they said, should be between a biological man and a biological woman. These and other views of the church will be presented before the joint parliamentary committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs & Gender, which is scrutinising the Bill.