We know that thanks to terrorist efforts, nationalist and fascist groups across the West are gaining momentum. We also know from history that nationalists have a tendency to draw arbitrary lines about what makes one a “true” countryman, and that the QUILTBAG community is always outside those lines. In fact the effect is so predictable that I debated investing stock in the baseball bat business, because we all know nationalists just love to beat dead horses.
So it can’t be a coincidence that French Roman Catholics are sensing a resurgency in homo-antagonism and so organized an anti gay-marriage rally despite the fact that the law passed three years ago.
Thousands of opponents of gay marriage took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to defend their vision of family values, hoping to revive the issue in political debates ahead of next year’s presidential election.
About 24,000 people took part in the demonstration, police said, far fewer than the several hundreds of thousands the group “Demo for All” mobilized in 2012 and 2013 in an unexpectedly strong show of opposition from conservatives, especially Roman Catholics.
The Socialist government legalized same-sex marriage, which it called “Marriage for All”, in 2013.
Police said 13 people were arrested after a scuffle at the protest, including six topless women from the activist group Femen. Some of them had words “Hate is not a family value” scrawled on their chests.
Organizers of Sunday’s protest aim to pressure politicians on the right, who face a presidential primary next month, to agree to repeal the law if they are elected president.
The protesters marched through prosperous western sections of Paris, waving French flags and the “Demo for All” movement’s blue and pink colors. Some held signs declaring “All together for the family” and “In 2017, I’ll vote for the family.”
Again, they seldom bother to explain how not shitting on Queer people somehow constitutes an assault on the family. Meanwhile QUILTBAG people wanting to, you know, start a family, still can’t thanks to the abusive Catholic lobby.
Let’s say I really like turkey sandwiches, so I go to a sub store to get a turkey sandwich. What the anti-gay lobbyists are doing is essentially shouting from the spot behind me in line that I shouldn’t be allowed to have a turkey sandwich because they prefer ham sandwiches. That the ham is still there for them to purchase seems to escape them.
I will never understand the rationale for this so-called “family values” rhetoric because they obviously are operating from a very twisted idea of what family is.
Needless to say, fuck off Christofascists. Those of us privy to history know better than to view you as anything but a menace.
-Shiv
I don’t wish to be a party pooper here, but one should be aware, how the Front Nationale courted and won about the quarter of the gay community to vote for them, as the party leader managed to shift attention toward anti-Islam sentiment.
This isn’t unique either. The place where I come from has low support for the LGBT community (the official government stance is that being queer is a liberal policy construct, not a real thing) and even among the community, there are unofficial barriers, like not wanting to enter kind of relationship with Romani people, an ethnicity that treats non-heterosexuals even less favorably, which creates a minority within a minority.
So, while I agree with your message, I also examine the culture itself, and luckily for the French, these fringe elements don’t enjoy nationwide support, their Pride parades don’t need to be guarded by the police every year. Lastly, just as a reminder, though I think you meant the baseball bats as a joke, it should be known, that in Russia more bats are being sold than people who actually play, and you can guess the unfunny reason why.
At the height of the initial protests we drove through France during our holiday with the caravan in tow and were enthusiastically greeted by those bastards who assumed that, being the ridiculous white father-mother-two-children-cliche that we are, we’d agree with them. Exactly two of my digits greeted them back.
I’m always wondering where the actual difference between right wing christians and right wing muslims is supposed to be. It must be the booze