Good News From France
Just when you thought Western civilisation was on its last legs, a Western nation comes along and surprises you. And when that nation is France, which for so long has embraced secularism and socialism, it is good news indeed. I had just recently written about France, with its plans to legalise homosexual marriage and eliminate mums and dads: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/09/26/the-war-on-mothers-and-fathers/
Well, it seems not all the French are thrilled with this idea. In fact, perhaps as many as 200,000 of them just took to the streets in protest over these loony and destructive proposals. Wow, so there is hope yet for Western civilisation in general, and France in particular.
One news report covers the events this way: “French opponents of same-sex marriage and adoption have staged their first major protests, rallying more than 100,000 people nationwide as police used tear gas against counter-demonstrators in one city. Wearing pink scarves and T-shirts and carrying pink balloons with the image of a man and woman holding two children’s hands, demonstrators on Saturday marched against plans by the socialist government to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption.
“Demonstrators rallied under slogans such as ‘Pro-marriage, not anti-gay’ and ‘Long live the true family’. And a Catholic humourist who goes by the name of ‘Frigide Barjot’ opened the Paris protest. ‘This is a great movement that is being launched,’ she told the crowd through a megaphone. ‘We are born from a man and a woman. A child is the result of a man and a woman’s orgasm. The problem for us is the end of civil marriage for everyone.’ Some 70,000 people joined the Paris rally, police said – though organisers put the figure at 200,000 – while more than 30,000 others held similar protests in towns around the country.”
Of course the homosexual militants tried to shut down and shout down these protests: “Police in the southwestern city of Toulouse used tear gas against a group of several hundred activists who tried to confront the main rally of several thousand in a counter-protest. A further 22,000 people protested in the southeastern city of Lyon, police said. Officers there detained around 40 would-be counter-demonstrators who had come to oppose the main rally.”
That is how the militants operate: try to take away the democratic freedoms of the majority, whether by destroying marriage, eliminating parents, or disrupting public meetings. No wonder they are so often referred to as the gaystapo.
Just over half of France is made up of those claiming to be Catholics, so presumably many of these protestors would have been Catholic, although one need not be religious of course to be greatly concerned about the militants’ war against marriage and family.
Another article adds these remarks: “Libération estimates that the true size of the Paris crowd was probably somewhere between the mayor’s estimate of 70,000 and the organizers’ figure of 200,000. It was likely around 100,000, which makes me wonder, ‘what’s going on in America?’ I can’t imagine 100,000 advocates of traditional marriage gathering in New York or Washington. Have French Catholics surpassed American conservatives in courage and sacrifice?
“Paris was not the only city to see protests for the ‘Famille PME.’ Other cities like Lyon also had rallies with crowds of over 20,000. The press estimates about 200,000 people in total came out to resist the proposed legalization of gay marriage. Since France has only one fifth the population of the United States, this would be equivalent to 500,000 people gathering in Washington and one million gathering across the country on a single day to exclaim support for traditional marriage.
“The French deserve credit for skipping many of the obfuscations that have clouded the same-sex marriage debate in the United States. Rather than waste time with dilatory comparisons to black civil rights, pathos focused on bullies, or narratives about hospital visitations, the argument seems to hone in on children almost immediately. Even the pro-gay Advocate, in covering the protests in France, mentions that the French law goes along with movements to eradicate fatherhood and motherhood as official designations:
“As part of the proposed marriage equality law and its corresponding adoption rights for same-sex couples, France is also considering removing gendered language referring to ‘mother’ and ‘father’ in its civil code, instead adopting the gender-neutral options ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2.’
“One could interpret the unfurling melodrama in France in one of two ways, but either leads to a similar insight about marriage debates. One could say that gay activists in France overshot by trying to scrub the words for mother and father from family law. Such a move in the United States would probably incite massive resistance.
“On the other hand, one could say that proponents of traditional marriage in France were wiser than Americans about navigating the discussion. Rather than get mired in debates about the ‘rights’ of ‘consensual couples’ to ‘love one another,’ they cut to the underlying issue, which is as central in the United States, even if camouflaged, as it is in France: Regardless of whether homosexuals love one another, they will need the state to intervene in order to experience parenting and claim a legacy after they die. Since they cannot conceive children within their ‘marriage’, they must rent sperm or a uterus from outside, and in order for the system to work, society must abandon qualms about this process’s implications for the biological parent that’s excluded from custodial rights. Society would also have to agree that there is nothing particular about fatherhood and motherhood that matters for the lifelong experience of children.
“Either way, it seems to me that if Americans debated gay marriage with the same frankness about the true core issue – children – then traditionalists would be getting more traction. The judgment about gay marriage becomes much more complicated when one dodges the canards about tax breaks and parallels to Jim Crow, going instead to the existential dilemma of child-rearing. Then again, with Hollande in power in France, it is unlikely these protestors will be able to block gay marriage from receiving Paris’s legal imprimatur.”
As I say, there appears to be hope yet for the West. Maybe we still have a chance. If even the French can wake up to the horrors of the brave new world implications of the militant homosexual agenda, then perhaps we will see things turned around in our lifetime. Vive la France.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/french-protest-gay-marriage/story-fnd134gw-1226518933096
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/vive_la_famille_the_french_rally_against_gay_marriage.html
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Is anyone brave enough to organise a similar rally in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, or even Hobart?
Ross McPhee
Bill,
Interesting case brewing in Canada. At last Christians can sit back and watch and not be in the line of persecution.
Watch the video after the article:-
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/11/20121118-104255.html
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/1974432655001
Corry Yuon
Well Ross, if one does come to Sydney I would hope to be able to go along to it.
Steve Davis
Dear Bill, I have recently seen various pro-homosexual rallies in Rocky, Gladstone and Mackay. Perhaps people in each of these cities who believe in traditional marriage should get organised. Some people in France are showing the way. Viva la France, Viva la Difference!
Regards, Franklin Wood
Something to cheer about Bill.
Thanks for the links Corry. I can’t remember having such a good laugh! It’s an absolute cracker! We do need a little light relief now and again.
Peter Coventry
In the mean time, Salt Shakers keeps us up to date with web polls, for whatever they are worth, takes 10 seconds to do. At least if we keep voting, they can’t say that public opinion has swung around in favour of ssm.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett