An attorney has taken the Pan Africanist Youth Congress (Payco) to the SA Human Rights Commission for making homophobic statements.

Attorney Coenraad Kukkuk and two others lodged the complaint at the SAHRC's Mpumalanga office, they said in a statement on Wednesday.

SAHRC Mpumalanga director Charles Kgoale said: "We view the hate speech charges seriously and have taken this matter to the national level, where it is being duly investigated."

Payco had "insulted homosexuals as well as the South African Constitution", he said.

According to News24, league president Pitso Mphasha told African Eye News Service on 20 January that all PAC structures were opposed to homosexuality.

"We are saying to hell with the SA constitution for giving rights to gays and lesbians. Homosexuality is totally immoral and there is no place for gays and lesbians here.

"Gays and lesbians in Africa are confused people who have been mentally colonised by Western imperialists who make them abandon their own cultures."

Kukkuk said the threat to constitutionally-entrenched gay rights was a threat against all rights.

"We are a secular society and an injury to one is an injury to all."