Carlo Petersen
ZIZIPHO PAE has slammed the UCT SRC after the student body’s decision to “reshuffle” her into non-executive portfolios and committees of the organisation.
Pae had been the SRC vice-president: external affairs when she posted her reaction on Facebook to a recent US Supreme Court ruling sanctioning same-sex marriages: “We are institutionalising and normalising sin! Sin. May God have mercy on us.”
The UCT student was subsequently voted out of the SRC, then allowed back into the student body after an intervention by the university’s vice-chancellor, Max Price.
Price weighed in on the matter after Pae requested that he review the SRC’s vote that expelled her.
The vice-chancellor said Pae’s statement was an expression of religious belief and not meant to harm others.
He then deemed the motion of censure adopted by the SRC against Pae to be invalid because of flaws in the SRC’s procedures.
Pae’s media representative, Freedom of Religion SA (Forsa), spoke to the Cape Times on her behalf yesterday, saying the SRC was still punishing Pae. “Having failed at removing Ms Pae from the SRC, the SRC has now devised a different plan to make Ms Pae feel the consequences of her actions,” said Forsa spokesperson Nadene Badenhorst.
“The SRC, who apparently cannot have a ‘bigot and a homophobe’ as their vice-president, this week decided that Ms Pae should be reshuffled into non-executive portfolios and committees of the SRC.”
Badenhorst said the SRC’s decision to reshuffle Pae was a blatant attempt to “punish, silence and shun her for expressing her religious convictions”. “It is clear that the SRC, which is supposed to be representative of all students, is not an environment where difference of belief or opinion is welcomed.
“This is an affront to the constitution that is founded on, and embraces, the very values of respect for, tolerance and accommodation of the other.”
SRC president Ramabina Mahapa said: “There is no further comment the SRC wishes to make on the Pae matter.”