Time Magazine Article: France Is Struggling With Gay Marriage Becoming Legal In 2013 Some Feel It Will Destroy French Civilization.
By Bruce Crumley Nov. 08, 2012
This week, the leftist government of French President François Hollande initiated draft legislation legalizing marriage and adoption for same-sex couples. But it’s a bill already generating stronger opposition than many expected in this famously progressive society. Indeed, while the bill unveiled on Nov. 7 aims to fulfill one of Hollande’s more popular campaign pledges, recent polls show support sagging for moves to extend gay couples the same rights enjoyed by heterosexual unions. Some reports claim even the President may be less than convinced about the necessity of reform.
The clamor against gay marriage in France flies in the face of a country famous for its supposedly open-minded attitudes on a host of social and behavioral issues. And ironically, that hesitation also comes just as American voters — whom many French consider pathologically puritanical — passed same-sex-union ballot initiatives in three states on Nov. 6. Contrasting with those progressive American election results are comments by French industrialist and conservative legislator Serge Dassault on the same day. Responding to Hollande’s same-sex-marriage reform, Dassault warned that its goal of giving gay and lesbian couples the same legal status as heterosexual unions meant the “end of the family, the end of child development … an enormous danger for the entire nation.”
(PHOTOS: A Visual History of the Gay-Rights Movement)
“Look at history — it’s one of the reasons for the decadence of Greece,” Dassault told France Culture radio in comments about legalizing same-gender marriage. “There will be no more reproduction, so what’s the point? Do we want a nation of gays? If so, in 10 years, there’ll be no one left. It’s stupid.”
Just who’s the prude now, chers français?
The French legislation, dubbed Marriage for All, was introduced on Nov. 7 at the weekly Cabinet meeting as the first stop in its journey toward parliamentary debate in January. Its stated objective is to “open marriage to couples of the same sex” and “consequentially also open the path to adoption for married people of the same sex”.
Extending same-gender couples the same legal recognition and rights as married heterosexuals was a major plank in Hollande’s campaign platform earlier this year. It was also one of the main social reforms on which he clashed with French conservatives, who repeatedly rejected the idea during their decade in power. Given the left’s parliamentary majorities, there’s little risk the politically and socially symbolic bill will fail to gain passage and become law by mid-2013.
“This is a step toward equality that took too long in coming and is moving toward reality,” said Women’s Rights Minister and government spokesperson Najat Vallaud-Belkacem during a weekly press briefing on Wednesday. “It doesn’t represent a victory of one category of people over others, but a victory for society as a whole.”
Not everyone in France sees it that way. In the run-up to the bill’s introduction on Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators joined protests across France denouncing the measure. A petition opposing the draft drew more than 1,000 signatures from mostly conservative mayors. Rightist politicians have challenged the bill with varying degrees of fury — Dassault representing the more bombastic extreme.
Jean-François Copé, leader of the right’s main Union for a Popular Movement party, called on Hollande to pull back what he called a badly prepared text creating change that France is not ready for. Christine Boutin — a former Cabinet member and Catholic fundamentalist — last month warned Parliament “the logic of this situation is if we have marriage [for everyone], we’ll move toward polygamy.” A fellow conservative official did Boutin one better, throwing incest into the mix of new deviant trends the legalization of same-sex marriage and adoption would spawn.
More dignified opposition has come from a rare interfaith protest bloc. Leaders of all major religions in France — Catholic, Muslim, Protestant and Jewish — have decried the measure for upending traditional definitions of marriage and family. During an address to French bishops on Nov. 3, Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris, André Vingt-Trois, also denounced the reform as “a sham” catering to a social minority, under which the definition of “marriage of a few [is] imposed on everyone.” He wasn’t alone in viewing the initiative as political pandering.
(MORE: International Gay Marriage)
“There will be neither courage nor glory in voting a law that relies more on slogans than arguments and conforming to dominant political correctness out of fear of scorn,” writes Gilles Bernheim, chief rabbi of France, in an open letter opposing the initiative.
That pushback would have materialized in any case, but it’s also being fueled by signs that French public support for the reform is waning. Though recent polls show a majority of people still supporting same-sex marriage and adoption rights, those levels appear to be dropping. A survey this month by Ifop for Le Monde shows support for legalization of same-sex marriage still at its historical high of 65%, but the level regarding adoption dropping to 52%. An annual poll published on Nov. 3 by BVA showed significant declines on both questions.
Now, according to one French news report on Thursday, even (the unmarried) Hollande is not that convinced the measure is as socially, ethically or legally important as it is politically significant.
Christiane Taubira, the French Justice Minister sponsoring the bill, dismissed any doubts about Hollande’s commitment to the bill, or the government’s determination to remedy long-standing injustices. “This is the audacity of equality,” Taubira told a press conference on Wednesday about the reform. “This is about respecting values of equality for everyone and acting in the best interests of children.”
It’s unlikely external opposition — and even some waffling among leftist politicians — will prevent the bill from becoming law. Yet its passage still won’t allow France to stake out any particularly lofty progressive high ground vis-à-vis European partners, or even some U.S. states. Twelve countries — including the U.K., Sweden and Denmark — have already enacted laws placing same-sex marriages on the same footing as heterosexual unions. On Wednesday, Spain’s Supreme Court struck down the final legal challenge to a law legalizing same-sex marriages and adoption.
Several other countries and U.S. states, meanwhile, allow gay and lesbian individuals and couples to adopt children — even in some places where same-sex marriage as such isn’t recognized. On Wednesday, voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington State cleared the way for legalization of same-sex marriage by passing state initiatives on the issue. In Minnesota, a proposal to alter the state constitution to prohibit recognizing same-sex couples as married was defeated.
Now, those and other U.S. states that have previously adopted equal or neutral positions on same-gender unions and parenting must wait to see if the famously live-and-let-live French will take the same steps as their less puritain American peers.
MORE: Marriage Victories Are (Slowly) Transforming the Notion of Family
Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/11/08/is-gay-marriage-too-progressive-for-the-french/#ixzz2BfwYwRki
Sydney Morning Herald Article: Australia Still In The Dark Ages Government Says No To Same Sex Marriage.
- By Dan Harrison
Indigenous Affairs and Social Affairs Correspondent.
Urged campaigners to “maintain your rage” … Labor backbencher Stephen Jones. Photo: Andrew Meares
ADVOCATES for legalising same-sex marriage will shift their focus to the state level, after federal MPs yesterday defeated a bill that would have allowed gay couples to marry.
The bill, introduced by Labor backbencher Stephen Jones, was defeated in the House of Representatives 98 votes to 42.
Ten of the 17 cabinet ministers in the lower house, Green Adam Bandt and independents Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott and Craig Thomson voted for same-sex marriage. All coalition MPs, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the former prime minister Kevin Rudd voted against the bill.
“I do not regret that our daughter has Sophie and I as parents” … Penny Wong, pictured with her partnerSophie Allouache. Photo: Glen McCurtayne
Channelling another former Labor prime minister, Gough Whitlam, Mr Jones urged campaigners to ”maintain your rage”, while the Australian Christian Lobby leader, Jim Wallace, said it was time for Parliament to ”move on”.
Gay rights activists said they would now look to state and territory parliaments to make the change. ”Now the Federal Parliament has effectively brushed the wishes of a majority of Australians aside, the states and territories will take the lead, making me confident we will see same-sex marriages performed somewhere in Australia by the end of the year,” the Australian Marriage Equality convener Alex Greenwich said.
Tasmania’s lower house passed a bill last month to legalise gay marriage. It must still pass the state’s 15-seat Legislative Council to become law. Efforts to legalise same-sex marriage are also under way in South Australia, the ACT and NSW, where the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, will allow his MPs a free vote.
The University of NSW law professor George Williams said state same-sex marriages would be a step forward but they would not be a substitute for national recognition because a marriage conducted in one state would not be recognised elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the opposition Whip, Warren Entsch, said he would consult with gay rights campaigners, the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, and his Coalition colleagues about introducing a bill for ”civil partnerships” that would provide national legal recognition to both same and opposite sex couples.
The Senate is expected to vote today on a separate same-sex marriage bill co-sponsored by the Labor senators Trish Crossin, Carol Brown, Gavin Marshall and Louise Pratt.
In debate yesterday, the Finance Minister, Penny Wong, whose partner Sophie Allouache gave birth to a baby girl in December, described as ”hurtful” arguments by some senators that the children of same-sex couples were worse off than those raised by heterosexual couples. ”I do not regret that our daughter has Sophie and I as parents,” Senator Wong said.
”I do regret that she lives in a world where some will tell her that her family is not normal. I regret that even in this chamber, elected representatives denigrate the worth of her family. I will not rest in the face of such prejudice. I want for her, for all of us, an Australia which is inclusive and respectful, and this is why this campaign will not end here.”
The gay Liberal senator Dean Smith spoke against the bill, saying opinion in the gay community was divided.
”By not agreeing to same-sex marriage, I’m not choosing to endorse discrimination against my fellow gay and lesbian Australians, or to be disrespectful to their domestic relationships … instead for me, it’s an honest acknowledgment of the special and unique characteristics of the union described as marriage,” he said.
Senator Smith said while he was a man of faith, religious considerations had not influenced his thinking on the issue.
Gayblackcanada 