The LGBTQ+ news platform MambaOnline is urging President Cyril Ramaphosa and Cabinet to publicly distance themselves from a controversial continental conservative conference planned for Cape Town next year, while calling on venues, hotels and businesses to consider whether hosting or supporting the event is consistent with their own stated commitments.
MambaOnline is also calling on the Department of Home Affairs to consider refusing entry, where lawful grounds exist, to international speakers who may be announced for the conference and who have documented histories of hate speech meeting the threshold established under South African law.
The demands are contained in a petition that had attracted 5,337 signatures at the time of writing, according to MambaOnline.
The petition has not yet been formally delivered to the government or other parties it addresses, with the publication saying it is continuing to campaign for support and consulting civil society partners on the timing and process of its submission.
The campaign is directed at the 3rd Pan-African Conference on Family Values, scheduled to take place in Cape Town from 12 to 15 May 2027.
The Africa Christian Professionals Forum, a Kenya-based network, confirmed the dates and Cape Town as the host city in a circular first reported by MambaOnline in July.
Organisers describe the gathering as a meeting of Christian leaders, professionals, policymakers, parliamentarians and faith leaders aimed at strengthening families, defending religious freedom and promoting what they describe as Africa’s biblical and indigenous values.
MambaOnline said it was not calling for religious conservatives to be excluded from South Africa simply because of their beliefs or their opposition to LGBTQ+ equality.
The publication said its position was directed at individuals who may seek to enter the country to promote the restriction or removal of the fundamental rights of others and whose documented speech or conduct may meet the legal threshold for hate speech.
At present, however, MambaOnline says it cannot identify any specific speaker it believes should be denied entry because the organisers have not confirmed who will participate in the 2027 conference.
“Our position is that, should any international speakers be announced who have a documented history of hate speech that meets the threshold established under South African law … the relevant authorities should consider whether there are lawful grounds to prevent their entry into the country,” said Luiz De Barros from Mamba online.
MambaOnline’s petition also does not call for the conference itself to be prohibited. It expressly affirms freedom of religion, belief, expression and peaceful assembly.
The publication said it recognised the importance of protecting freedom of belief and expression, including views with which it strongly disagrees.
At the same time, it argued that constitutional rights are not unlimited and that freedom of religion cannot automatically justify conduct that unlawfully infringes the dignity, equality or rights of others.
It drew a distinction between holding or expressing conservative religious beliefs and promoting hatred, discrimination or the removal of the constitutional and fundamental rights of a particular group.
The petition’s call on hotels, venues and businesses has similarly been framed as a request for them to consider whether events and organisations they host or support are consistent with their publicly stated values, rather than a demand that they be legally compelled to refuse service.
“Businesses and consumers can then make their own decisions within the framework of the law,” De Barros said.
The publication also defended its decision to run an advocacy petition while continuing to report on the conference and related issues.
De Barros said that it was both a community news publication serving LGBTQ+ people and a platform openly committed to LGBTQ+ visibility, representation, dignity and equality.
“Advocacy for the fundamental rights of our community has always formed part of our editorial mission,” said De Barros.
The publication said that support for LGBTQ+ equality did not prevent it from reporting fairly or responsibly on issues or individuals with whom it disagreed, adding that it did not regard the equality and human dignity of LGBTQ+ people as matters on which a publication representing a marginalised community was required to be neutral.
The MambaOnline campaign is one of at least four civil society interventions that have emerged in response to the planned conference.
A Change.org petition was launched in 2025 shortly after news of the conference first circulated.
On 30 July 2026, the LGBTQIA+ Sector of the National Dialogue of South Africa Steering Committee wrote to Ramaphosa, Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi and Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities Sindisiwe Chikunga, expressing what it called profound alarm.
MambaOnline launched its own petition in August, while a coalition known as Vimba! We the People was launched on 3 September, bringing together organisations from the LGBTIQ+, feminist, sexual and reproductive health, legal, faith, labour, education and racial justice sectors.
The campaigns differ in what they are asking government and the public to do.
The National Dialogue of South Africa’s LGBTQIA+ sector has adopted a position similar to MambaOnline’s, saying its intervention is not an attempt to suppress religious belief or freedom of association and arguing that the Constitution cannot be selectively applied.
Vimba! We the People has taken a different approach. While acknowledging calls from some activists for the conference to be stopped, the coalition has framed the event as an opportunity to build cooperation among movements that have historically worked separately.
The earlier Change.org petition remains the most direct in its demand, calling for the conference to be prevented from taking place.
The pressure on Home Affairs to consider action against particular foreign delegates draws on a South African precedent that MambaOnline has cited.
In September 2016, then Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba declared American preacher Steven Anderson a prohibited person and withdrew the visa exemption enjoyed by members of his church.
Gigaba acted under section 29(1)(d) of the Immigration Act, which allows the state to exclude a foreigner who belongs to or adheres to an organisation advocating racial hatred or social violence.
At the time, Gigaba said the government had a duty to prevent harm and hatred against LGBTI people.
More than 60,000 people had signed petitions calling for Anderson to be refused entry into South Africa.
The comparison, however, has limits.
Anderson had publicly called for the killing of gay people and celebrated the Orlando nightclub massacre.
The proposed Cape Town conference, by contrast, is being presented as a policy and religious gathering centred on a declaration and a proposed continental charter.
Whether immigration law could be used against delegates who advocate legal and policy restrictions affecting LGBTQ+ people, rather than explicitly advocating violence, may therefore depend heavily on the statements and conduct of each individual.
MambaOnline also acknowledged the danger of creating a precedent that could later be used against other minority or unpopular viewpoints.
It said any decision to deny entry should be made lawfully by the relevant authorities, based on the facts of each individual case and within the framework of South African law.
The dispute nevertheless places several constitutional rights in tension.
South Africa’s Constitution protects equality and freedom from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It also protects freedom of religion, belief and opinion, freedom of expression and the right to assemble peacefully.
Another point of contention concerns MambaOnline’s description of the conference as part of a foreign-funded anti-rights movement.
The publication told Africa Daily that it does not currently have independent confirmation of who is funding the specific 2027 Cape Town conference because organisers have released limited information about it.
It said, however, that international organisations and networks had supported previous editions of the Pan-African Conference on Family Values and broader campaigns around what are described as “family values” issues in Africa.
MambaOnline said its concern therefore extended beyond the funding of one particular conference and included what it described as broader international networks seeking to influence African policy and public discourse on LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights and sexuality education.
The Cape Town gathering follows a conference in Nairobi in 2025, which closed with a declaration urging African governments to resist what organisers characterised as foreign policy agendas undermining cultural and moral values.
The 2027 conference is also expected to advance a Draft African Charter on Family Sovereignty and Values aimed at adoption by African Union member states.
As drafted, the proposed charter would exclude same-sex couples and their children from its definition of family.
Separately, organisers of the African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty, a related but distinct series previously held in Uganda and Ghana, have announced further gatherings in Burkina Faso and Eswatini in 2027.
South Africa’s selection as host is likely to sharpen the political and constitutional debate.
It is remains the only African country whose Constitution expressly lists sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination, and the only one that performs same-sex marriages.
Namibia recognises foreign ones for limited immigration purposes but bans them domestically.
For MambaOnline and its supporters, the planned conference represents a threat that requires public and political resistance.
For its organisers and supporters, it is expected to be a forum for advancing religious, cultural and policy positions they describe as African family values.