How France "promotes" gays

In France, for almost a month now, the main state question is whether to pass a law that will allow gays to officially register their marriage and adopt children. “Marriages for gays” (that’s the name of the draft law - mariage gay) worries the French much more than the budget policy of the socialists, the tax flight of Depardieu, Cassel, Bellucci and Brigitte Bardot (who, however, never ran away). And even the war in Mali, thanks to which President Hollande’s rating has slightly increased, is giving way to topic number one - gay weddings are more readily discussed. A French friend told me: “If Hollande passes a gay marriage law, it will save his presidency.”

The first large demonstrations organized by opponents of Hollande’s initiative took place in November, but the largest one took place on January 13. Then, according to the police , 320 thousand people took to the streets in Paris. “As many as 320 thousand people are against gays in Paris. And they call it Europe,” a Russian reader will say. Only few people in Russia know that demonstrations against the wedding law involve lawyers known for their constant defense of homosexuals, and even gays themselves, who believe that it is completely unnecessary to pass such a law. Moreover, the reader may not know that gays, like heterosexuals, have long had the legal right in France to register their union - pax (PACS). It differs from a wedding in some legal subtleties, in particular, it is easier to terminate. Therefore, many heterosexuals also prefer to enter into a pax rather than into an official marriage. Of the 205,558 paks registered in 2010, 9,143 were signed by homosexuals (that is, approximately 4.5%).

As always happens in France, the demonstration “against” was a response to the demonstration “for” that took place in December 2012. Then there were slightly fewer people, but enough to show the importance and mass scale of the demonstration (60 thousand people according to the police, 150 thousand according to the organizers). Heterosexuals and Catholics came to say that they, too, were for gays to be able to get married and have children. In general, as Russian deputies would say, complete propaganda!

Photo: Florian Gomart

It is worth understanding something else: on the side of homosexual weddings is the entire ruling political elite of France, led by President Hollande. Before the elections, he made a promise to consider this issue, and now he is trying to keep it. Even the far right, led by Marine Le Pen, did not call on their supporters to take to the streets against gay weddings. The issue is too sensitive to indulge in political manipulations around it. And free French society may not forgive such a homophobic demarche.

And this whole story with demonstrations, rainbow flags on the streets of Paris, kissing couples, their opponents and right-wing conservatives from the provinces is not about gays at all. It is about how French society is developing and trying to match the spirit of the times, and, like any democracy, it comes to this through debates, discussions, rallies and demonstrations. The law has every chance of success: after all, as the Parisians write on the posters, “It is better to have two mothers than one bad father.”

And while in distant Europe Parisians are marching for and against gay weddings, in Russia those few brave souls who come to the State Duma against the “anti-gay” law are punched in the jaw by homophobes under police supervision. And, of course, the point is not in Putin’s “bloody regime” or the “enraged” parliamentary printer, but in the fact that same-sex relationships are still called “homosexuality”, parents send their homosexual children for “treatment”, and Russia ranks third in the world on teenage suicides in Europe.

Photo: Florian Gomart