Pro-gay ‘marriage’ march in France eclipsed by much larger traditional marriage rally
January 31, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An estimated 120,000 people, according to the police, demonstrated in Paris on Sunday afternoon in support of government plans to legalize same-sex “marriage” and abortion. Organizers of the event – LGBT associations, “homoparental” family unions, trade unions, high school unions and the socialist, communist, leftwing and green parties – claim 400,000 people took to the streets in the sunny winter weather.
If police numbers are correct that would indicate as many as ten times the number of people took part in the demonstration against homosexual “marriage” earlier this month. According to some estimates more than a million people participated in the marches opposing gay “marriage.”
Given that Sunday’s event was a response to that enormous show of force, it would appear the defenders of “pro-true marriage” won hands down.
Pro-gay “marriage” campaigners clearly anticipated their loss. On Saturday, homosexualist leaders were already announcing that they would consider to have won if more demonstrators took part than participated in the first pro-gay “marriage” march on December 16th. That crowd was estimated up to 150,000.
While the mainstream media have all given large coverage to the event, calling it “good-natured” and “inoffensive”, the truth is somewhat different. The tone of Sunday’s demonstration was clearly aggressive against opponents of same-sex “marriage”, and especially so against Catholic opposition, which thanks to a number of outspoken bishops has made itself clearly audible.
If the slogans and signs brandished by the demonstrators are anything to go by, “homophobia” – which is a penal offense under French law – begins with opposition to gay “marriage.” This is not the case – yet. If and when same-sex “marriage” is legalized, things could change fast. Simply remarking that homosexual activity can be deemed “inferior” to heterosexual activity has already led to a lawsuit against one member of Parliament, Christian Vanneste, who has since been excluded from ex-president Sarkozy’s UMP party for similar statements.
This author saw large numbers of hateful inscriptions aimed at the Pope, such as “Benedict XVIth, Queen of homophobia”. “We’re gay but we’re not priests, children needn’t fear.” Others chose blasphemous images and slogans: “Jesus had two daddies”, “Mary had IVF,” “The real danger for a child is the catechism.”
This last sign gives the true image of homosexualist demands for “marriage”, adoption, access to parental rights, IVF and surrogate motherhood – and also “divorce”, “alimony” and “shared custody”. They want homosexual activity to be considered as completely normal and to make homosexual couples completely indistinguishable from male-female couples. Or, perhaps better. One little boy held a sign with the words: “One Daddy and one Mommy, that’s crappy in any case.”
This did not prevent them from waving signs with explicit phrases or drawings of which one of the more quotable ones was: “On Mondays, we have ravioli, on Saturdays, sodomy.” Another revealing sign said : “Why are cows the only ones who can get inseminated ? Marriage and IVF, fight for one, fight for the other.”
A number of socialist and leftist politicians, including the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, participated in the march, as well as ex-president Sarkozy’s health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, who warned that candidates to the Municipal Council of Paris had better be “gay-friendly”: a condition she called “not sufficient, but necessary.”
Large numbers of homosexual couples joined socialist militants, high-schoolers and trades union members campaigning against “discrimination” and for “equal rights”. Some gay couples came with babies in prams, many more lesbian couples were accompanied by babies and young children holding signs saying, “I have two Mommies and everything’s OK”.
As this is already official socialist party doctrine it is to be feared that discussion of the text of the gay “marriage” law in Parliament, which begins on Tuesday 29th and is scheduled to end with a first vote by the National Assembly on February 12th, will go relatively smoothly. The parliamentary opposition, or at least the greater part of it, has already chosen its strategy: they are promoting a “civil alliance” for homosexuals including all the rights and obligations of marriage excepting those related to filiation.
On Friday, pressed by the sheer numbers of the anti-same sex “marriage” demonstration on January 13th, president François Hollande at last granted a 30-minute audience to the spokespeople of the “Manif pour tous” (Demonstration for all). Frigide Barjot, the event’s whacky figurehead, was accompanied by friend Laurence Tcheng, representative of “The Left for Republican Marriage” and a homosexual who gave witness to his personal opposition to same-sex “marriage” on a new website, homovox.com. None of the leaders of the larger, pro-life or Catholic organizers were invited to join, giving lead to some tension.
On emerging from the presidential palace of the Elysée, Frigide Barjot said Hollande had been “shaken” by her arguments, adding:
“Once again, adults have equal rights to live and to bond, equal rights for gays and straights."
The next day, on an interview with an FM music station, Frigide Barjot made her point even clearer:
“Today, two men cannot procreate, they cannot father together”, she said. The interviewer interjected: “They can love each other!” – “Absolutely”, answered Barjot, adding that it is “totally just” that the draft law on same-sex “marriage” should be asking “that love should be recognized in a union equal to a union composed by a man and a woman”. “Man-man, woman-woman, are equal to man-woman, I agree with that, that love is a given and they must live out their love as well as possible”, she said.
Up to date, there has been no official reaction from the organizers of the campaign against same-sex “marriage”. For how long?
