Much is being heard in France these days about gay marriage. Does this mean a genuine debate is developing? Not the least bit! Critics of the government’s bill on “marriage for all” ceaselessly put forward all kinds of excellent reasons to reject it, and no one replies.
Ministers just say they are happy to allow everyone to make their points, but the advocates of families with two daddies or two mummies simply don’t bother to argue back. They apparently believe that a self-evident right does not need to be justified. It ought to be acknowledged, they say, not discussed. This is why no official or defender of the bill has stooped to comment on the elaborate cases made against it by cardinals, bishops, imams, rabbis, and also non-religious personalities and organizations.
The media generally find such rationale too sophisticated: it cannot be compacted into bold headlines; the general public would get bored.
Conversely, the notion that anyone should be able to marry anyone is based on simplistic ideals that any honorable person will grasp and adopt at once.
Shying away from actual dialogue first rests on the principle that any form of discrimination is bad. Denying gays and lesbians access to marriage if they feel like it then amounts to refusing to consider them as human beings. It is therefore morally unacceptable, as a form of “homophobia”, which has been declared a hideous crime that toddlers are now warned against in kindergarten.
It is also argued that several American states and some European countries have already opened marriage to gays and lesbians, and that France must catch up in order remain among the world’s most advanced countries, as the exemplary standard bearer of equality and justice.
Another excuse for declining to deal seriously with objections is that gay marriage was part of candidate François Hollande’s platform. Since he was elected president, the conclusion is that this idea was approved by a majority, and that it is undemocratic to challenge it now.
As opponents (and especially Catholics) are now beginning to stage mass demonstrations because rational debates prove impossible, a fourth form of indirect rebuff is taking shape: such type of political pressure is branded as unnatural, because marching down boulevards chanting slogans belongs to progressives and defenders of the oppressed, not conservatives and reactionaries…
All this is highly paradoxical indeed. It would be rather unusual for a leftist government to have to yield to protesters peacefully invading the streets. There has been a precedent, though: in1984, after a million people gathered in Paris, another socialist president whose first name was François was forced to fire his prime minister and entire cabinet and to give up his party’s plan to nationalize all private schools, most of which are Catholic.
Hollande is by no means sure to do better than Mitterrand. The fulfillment of his promise to legalize “mercy killing” has already been postponed, officially to give a panel of experts the time to investigate the matter in depth and write a full-size scientific report whose conclusion no one will dare disagree with.
The supporters of euthanasia are obviously more patient than the champions of gay marriage. The latter’s blind determination is another paradox: at a time when marriage is no longer so popular, with boys and girls getting married later or not at all, even if they have children, and divorced more often, it is ironical to see an avant-garde claiming the right to take advantage of such an old-fashioned institution.
There is more: no unanimity can be found on the left, and even among gay and lesbian groups. Their traditional bisexual and transsexual allies obviously feel hardly concerned, so that the LBGT lobby is falling apart, while the socialist rank and file, who have higher priorities on their agenda, are perplexed and divided. To be honest, a few voices in favor of gay rights also make themselves heard in the Gaullist opposition party.
With a little hindsight, it appears that a small “enlightened” elite have persuaded themselves and a handful of politicians who would be ashamed of being left behind that same-sex unions are the inevitable next step in the modernization of social life and the growth of civil liberties, after universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, the reprobation of racism and sexism, divorce and birth control. Because it is rooted in the illusory faith in “Progress,” this belief is impervious to any reasonable objection and will resort to caricatured values and contradictory arguments to impose itself without ever deigning to disclose its real motivations or to examine the consequences.
In the present case, the fear of not being “with it” is being used to drive home the notion that homosexuality is “normal.” The ultimate unspeakable goal is to weaken instinctive repugnance, especially among teenagers. The prospect of the next steps is not only sickening, but downright frightening. The French poet Paul Valéry said that civilizations can die. This suggests that ours might commit suicide.
The question is how long people will tolerate being manipulated and treated like morons by madmen claiming to be philanthropists. It is not true that François Hollande won the last presidential election because he promised to legalize same-sex unions: the French merely (and narrowly) rejected the incumbent. Equality does not mean that males and females are interchangeable. Hope and faith that the future can be better cannot consist in depriving the word “marriage” of its significance, but in betting on reason.
Church leaders have done their duty by pointing out the predictably disastrous effects of the legalization of gay marriage. It is up to people now to finish the job by making it clear on the political stage that this is definitely not the kind of advance that is needed.
— –
Hundreds of thousands rally against gay ‘marriage’ in France
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/hundreds-of-thousands-rally-against-gay-marriage-in-france
La traduction de cet article de Jean Duchesne écrit en anglais pour The Catholic Thing est ici :
http://www.france-catholique.fr/Le-probleme-du-mariage-homosexuel.html
