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Call Me Wesley

(38,187 posts)
Tue Apr 23, 2013, 01:06 PM Apr 2013

Official: France Legalizes Gay Marriage After Harsh Debate, Violent Protests

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/france-gay-marriage-law-_n_3139470.html

PARIS -- France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after a wrenching national debate and protests that flooded the streets of Paris. Legions of officers and water cannon stood ready near France's National Assembly ahead of the final vote, bracing for possible violence on an issue that galvanized the country's faltering conservative movement.

The measure passed easily in the Socialist-majority Assembly, 331-225, just minutes after the president of the legislative body expelled a disruptive protester in pink, the color adopted by French opponents of gay marriage.

"Only those who love democracy are here," Claude Bartelone, the Assembly president, said angrily.

In recent weeks, violent attacks against gay couples have spiked and some legislators have received threats – including Bartelone, who got a gunpowder-filled envelope on Monday.

One of the biggest protests against same-sex marriage drew together hundreds of thousands of people bused in from the French provinces – conservative activists, schoolchildren with their parents, retirees, priests and others. That demonstration ended in blasts of tear gas, as right-wing rabble-rousers, some in masks and hoods, led the charge against police, damaging cars along the Champs-Elysees avenue and making a break for the presidential palace.

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told lawmakers that the first weddings could be as soon as June.




Or in other words: Egalité: 1 - Catholic church and bigots: 0.
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Official: France Legalizes Gay Marriage After Harsh Debate, Violent Protests (Original Post) Call Me Wesley Apr 2013 OP
Mon Dieu, Sacre Gay! xchrom Apr 2013 #1
Go traditional: Call Me Wesley Apr 2013 #2
a BeDazzled Beret! nt xchrom Apr 2013 #3

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
1. Mon Dieu, Sacre Gay!
Tue Apr 23, 2013, 01:21 PM
Apr 2013

I shall need a celebratory French out fit for this.

Some thing tasteful - yet revealing, I think.

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