France to approve gay marriage but debate to rumble on

PARIS - France's parliament will finally approve a bill to legalise gay marriage on Tuesday after months of protests that have shown no sign of abating in the run-up to the historic vote.

The bill, intended to make France the 14th country in the world to allow same-sex marriage, is expected to be comfortably carried given the comfortable majority enjoyed by the ruling Socialists and their allies in the lower house National Assembly.

In February, deputies voted 329-229 in favour of the bill on its first reading and a similar result is anticipated when the formal ballot on the second and final reading takes place around 1500 GMT.

Supporters are planning a celebratory rally and opponents will stage protests in Paris and across the country, but that is unlikely to be the end of what has been one of the most divisive debates in France's recent history.

The bill, which will also accord gay and lesbian couples the right to adopt children, will only become law when it is signed by President Francois Hollande and published in the Official Journal.

Opposition parties are hoping to delay that step by challenging the measure through France's constitutional council.

Even if that appeal is quickly dismissed, they will hope that Hollande can be pressured into a decision not to sign the law into force.

That has happened before. Former president Jacques Chirac shelved an unpopular employment law in 2006 in the face of public hostility.

But all the signs are that Hollande will stick to his guns on the issue, despite a popularity slump that has left him with one of the lowest approval ratings any French president has ever endured.

The opposition UMP has succeeded in making the gay marriage issue a focus of broader discontent with the government, which has also come under fire over the parlous state of the economy and the recent resignation of Hollande's budget minister for tax fraud.

The Socialist leader could scarcely have anticipated the scale of the opposition he would face over a reform that initially seemed to enjoy solid majority backing among French voters.

Recent polls have suggested a campaign in which the Roman Catholic Church initially played the leading role has shifted opinion to the extent that the electorate is fairly evenly split on both gay marriage and adoption.

Against that background, the debate has become increasingly acrimonious in recent weeks with the Socialists accusing the UMP of making common cause with the far-right Front National (FN) over the issue.

There have also been reports of a spike in homophobic attacks and claims that far-right extremists have been responsible for some initially peaceful protests degenerating into violence.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Homophobic assaults surge in France amid gay marriage debate

PARIS - Wilfred de Bruijn's face is bloated, seeped in blood, his bruised right eye shut tight, his tooth broken -- the victim of a brutal attack in Paris while he was "walking arm in arm" with his boyfriend.

His is one of the latest cases of homophobia in France, where activists say reports of verbal and physical assaults on gays have surged amid rabid debate over a bill allowing same-sex marriage, currently being discussed in the Senate.

"Sorry to show you this. It's the face of homophobia," de Bruijn, a Dutch man living in France for 10 years, wrote on his Facebook page next to a photo of his battered face that has been shared thousands of times.

Elizabeth Ronzier, head of SOS homophobie, said there had been a 30 percent rise in reports of homophobic and transphobic assaults last year compared to 2011, with a marked surge when debate began in the autumn.

"And in the two months to the end of February this year, we received the same amount of testimonies that we would normally get over a period of six months," she said.

The bill has galvanised public opinion in France, not only on the streets where supporters and opponents have regularly faced off in nationwide protests attracting hundreds of thousands, but also among friends and family.

Despite this, it has made its way through the legislative process, adopted by the cabinet in November and the parliament's lower house in February. It is now in the Senate, where debate on the bill is due to end Thursday or Friday.

-- More homophobes 'expressing themselves' --

"It's difficult to say whether there are more homophobes than before, but there are more who are expressing themselves," said Nicolas Gougain, spokesman for the Inter-LGBT, a rights group for lesbians, gays, bi and trans-sexuals.

Protests have been led mainly by religious groups and conservatives in a country that is officially secular but predominantly Catholic.

They have focused not only on same-sex marriage, but also on other aspects of the bill such as allowing gay couples to adopt children.

And while polls in France regularly show that a majority of people support gay marriage, far less are in favour of same-sex adoption.

Some of the demonstrations have turned violent. Last month, police were forced to fire tear gas on people protesting the bill in Paris, and dozens were arrested.

Opponents insist they are not against homosexuals, but that marriage is an institution meant for a man and a woman, pointing to civil unions that already exist for same-sex couples.

But as the bill progresses towards final approval -- or less likely, rejection -- some opponents have upped the ante, resorting to more radical actions to get their message across.

Senator Esther Benbassa, for instance, says her car was trashed over the weekend -- a move she believes is linked to her support for the bill - and that she has received threatening phone calls, emails and letters for days.

Erwann Binet, a Socialist MP who supports the bill, has also been forced to cancel planned debates for security reasons after being heckled by far-right militants, who have taken a front seat in the debate.

The main opposition movement "Manif pour tous" has sought to distance itself from these actions, saying they are the work of a radical few. But activists say that's not enough.

"Men and women in the Roman Catholic church, in the (right-wing) UMP party... must realise that to say all the time that homos are dangerous for kids, to place them in sub-categories, is... an extremely hurtful form of discrimination," de Bruijn said Wednesday on France Inter radio.

"It's the tone that makes me fear that many other less educated, less polite people let loose."

And the sheer scale of opposition in a country governed by the motto "freedom, equality, fraternity" has surprised more than one.

But experts have sought to calm fears, pointing to mass protests and opposition in the late 1990s surrounding adoption of France's PACS -- a form of civil union between two adults of different or same sex.

This was a bill "that was adopted with a lot of difficulty, with huge opposition on the streets -- as big as today -- with a third of French mothers who opposed it, debates that lasted hundreds of hours," said Frederic Martel, author of the book "Global Gay".

"The law was finally voted on at the end of 1999, and a year later, it was unanimously accepted in the country... That allows us to put into perspective the opposition to this bill."

source: abs-cbnnews.com