Page:Minister of Home Affairs v Fourie.djvu/52

 Rh same, discriminates unfairly against same-sex couples. It gives to the one and not to the other. The instruments created by the legal system exclude from their reach persons entitled to be protected by them. It is those instruments that stand to be identified as being inconsistent with the Constitution, and not ‘the law’ as an abstraction. The law must be measured in the context of what is provided for by the legal system as a whole. In this respect, exclusion by silence and omission is as effective in law and practice as if effected by express language. Same-sex unions continue in fact to be treated with the same degree of repudiation that the state until two decades ago reserved for interracial unions; the statutory format might be different, but the effect is the same. The negative impact is not only symbolic but also practical, and each aspect has to be responded to. Thus, it would not be sufficient merely to deal with all the practical consequences of exclusion from marriage. It would also have to accord to same-sex couples a public and private status equal to that which heterosexual couples achieve from being married.

The conclusion is that when evaluated in the context of the legal regime as a whole, the common law definition and section 30(1) are under-inclusive and unconstitutional to the extent that they make no appropriate provision for gay and lesbian people to celebrate their unions in the same way that they enable heterosexual couples to do.

The matter does not end there, however. The state and the amici contend that even if the Marriage Act and common law are under-inclusive, the remedy is not to be Rh