Lynne Brown South Africa's President has made an openly-lesbian woman a cabinet minister. Lynne Browne is believed to be first openly-gay cabinet minister in Africa. She will serve as Minister of Public Enterprises. Broadcaster and political author Eusebius McKaiser has told the Guardian it’s a significant move. “It is, sadly, probably newsworthy, I guess, insofar as the social impact of openly gay people in high-profile public leadership positions cannot be discounted in a country like South Africa where levels of homophobia, including violence against black lesbian women, remain rife,” he says. “The symbolism matters also from an African perspective too given other countries around us are enacting and enforcing laws criminalising same-sex sex and lifestyles.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 27th May 2014 - 8:42am