Source: New Vision
While speaking during the Easter prayers at Rwera Catholic Parish in Ntungamo, President Yoweri Museveni called for calm as the public weighs in the debate on the "Marriage and Divorce Bill".

He also added that the National Resistance Government would oppose the Bill for as long as it still contained clauses that are; "anti-people, against cultural norms as well as the rights of all citizens". This wise counsel should be followed to the later because if the Bill is passed in its current form it may end up creating more problems than it was intended to solve. Which is why over-legislating marriage may cause more problems than existing ones.

The West has over-legislated marriage and they are now reaping from a cobweb of laws that have redefined marriage to an abomination to our traditional value systems.

The existing pieces of legislation on marriage include; the Marriage Act, Hindu Marriage and Divorce Act, Customary Marriage/Registration Act, Marriage and Divorce of Mohammedans Act, Divorce Act and the Marriage and Africans Act. The proponents of the Marriage and Divorce Bill should show us the gaps in these acts before we embark on their outlandish project. The west has always and will, relentlessly, want us to have replicas of their own laws without due consideration of our own value systems.

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was right to suggest that MPs should consult, with their constituents, on the relevance of the Marriage and Divorce Bill. The results are out indicating a rejection of the Bill provisions and the suspension by Parliament of the debate on the proposed law. I attended a consultation meeting in Kakooge, Nakasongola District where folks rejected the Bill flatly. This chorus is country wide and Bill proponents should take note of that. In fact one folk said proponents of the Bill want the NRM to fall.

Ugandans have to come to grips with the fact that over-legislation will not provide solutions to the poignant problems associated with cohabitation, marital property ownership, divorce, domestic violence, conjugal/rights etc. Which is why religious leaders have also made a point by opposing not only the contents/theatrics of the Bill but also its spirit, the farther away we depart from the provisions and underpinnings of God's word and teaching in the quest for modernity, the more shall we be breaking up the most important unit in any country, the family. Strong and stable families, in aggregate, make up strong and stable nations built on morals.

And because we have become so materialistic, the focus of many is on sharing property after divorce in total disregard of children. This has actually caused insurmountable problems in the West, where God's teaching has been replaced by "materialism". I was shocked when I visited Koln, Germany in the early 2000. My friend and I ventured into a nearby church built in 1252. The worship place had been turned into a store and tourist attraction site. Ugandans must ask themselves whether that is the route we want to take?

Some former members of the 7th Parliament have argued that the proposed Bill should be passed quickly. They forget that during their tenure the same Bill stared in their faces and these wonderful people lacked the metal in them to pass it. They want their failure to be corrected by others.

In the process of debating the Bill many have also lost sobriety with men supporting masculine positions while women have tended to go for feminine ones. Such a stance cannot produce a just and good law when we are all pulling in different directions basing on gender and property ownership considerations. Uganda, as a country, has over-liberalised and marriage seems to be its next victim. Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa rightly argued in the New Vision of April 2, 2013 thus, ".... in a true marriage, none of the couple owns property as an individual". If our country has something to guard and protect jealously, it is marriage.

As a country, we also need to re-examine whether the existing laws on marriage and our judicial system have not served the purpose of ensuring marital stability before we jump into the unknown with pieces of legislation littering our law books to a point of absurdity.

The writer is a special mobiliser, NRM

• Uganda