French Prime Minister announces France will legalize gay marriage by 2013
French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault confirmed that France will legalize marriage and adoption for gay couples by 2013, following through on an election promise made by President Francois Hollande.
Gay couples in France will be allowed to get married and to adopt children by 2013, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced in Parliament, Wednesday.
The new French President Francois Hollande made a promise during his campaign to legalize gay marriage.
Since 1999, couples in France have been allowed to enter into civil unions, whether straight or gay. But Wednesday, Hollande’s Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault confirmed that the law will be changed by 2013 to allow gay couples to get married and adopt children.
BBC journalist David Chazan wasn’t surprised by the announcement. He’s been covering the story in Paris and said it's been a long time coming for same-sex couples.
“It’s been expected and it was one of the planks of Francois Hollande’s presidential campaign,” Chazan said.
Many European nations already allow gay marriage and adoption. In France, civil unions are recognized by the state, but don't offer the same inheritance or parenting rights as marriage.
In his speech, Ayrault said the shift is really in response to changes in society, lifestyles and attitudes in France.
''Society is evolving, lifestyles and mentalities are changing,'' he said. ''The government will respond to that.''
A 2012 survey from the French Institute of Public Opinion showed 63 percent of French people are in favor of gay marriage while 56 percent support gay adoption.
“What has changed in France is interesting. About 10 or 15 years ago, majority of French people opposed gay marriage. Now, more than 60 percent of French people are in favor of gay marriage to the point where, I think it’s fair to say that it’s really only a very small minority of French people who are still against it,” Chazan said.
Ayrault’s announcement came just days after Paris held its annual Gay Pride parade.
“People wanted it. People expected it. There’s been hardly any reaction here at all, simply because people have been focusing on the other things that the prime minister had to say about the economy,” Chazan said.
Gay organizations in France are welcoming the government’s announcement. They told Chazan there were going to be queues of people lining up to get married as soon as the law changes.
According to Chazan, the only controversial issue left concerning gay couples is adoption. Though 56 percent of French people support giving gay couples the right to adopt, that figure is still less than the percentage of people supporting same-sex marriage.
“I think the reason for that is because a lot of people feel that bringing up children should be done by a man and a women, and there are fears, particularly in the case of male homosexual couples, that men are more likely to be sexual predators than women. So that’s why they’re a bit worried about the notion of two men bringing up children on their own," Chazan said.
Gay rights groups are responding to those claims by noting that there’s nothing to suggest that gay men are any more likely to be sexual predators than heterosexual men, Chazan said.
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Same-sex couples would intentionally be depriving adopted (unrelated) children of beautifuly loving and defining relationships with both a woman (mother) and a man (father). Children of 0-4 are (apart from love) primarily interested in what their senses perceive directly. That is diverse sounds (acoustic), colours / forms / movement patterns (visual), tactile sense, to a lesser degree sense of smell and taste. At this age there is no mental activity – its about enjoying “input” directly, discovering the basics of the world via senses, not thought or concept. And the world of children of this age consists primarily of their parents, because they prefer them to everything and everybody else. Perception of the parents is prefered over all other perceptions. What ever is learnt directly from them is learnt best.
Its important to know that children recognize the difference between feminin and masculine very well from about 6 months of age. They evidently love the difference between their mum and dad and they love to interact with both as different expressions of the relationship with a parent.
The gender specific characteristics of the parents constitute the most important source of perception for a young child – simply because these are what he percieves naturally and by necessity. Gender-specific differences between mum and dad are the 1. the first, 2. the most intensly experienced, 3. the most important categorie of diversity a child of 0 – 4 can experience. And diversity is fundamentaly important: We hang nice pictures or multi-coulored objects over the cot and try to stimulate the childs senses – let him experience all sorts of diversity through his senses, but nothing is more important and interesting and defining for a child than what he percieves directly from his parents.
Watch how much a toddler enjoys first listening to his mother sing to him then the male voice of his father sing. Its excactly this kind of experience of diversity directly from his parents which makes his day.
Same-sex parents cannot offer their children this specific advantage of diversity. That’s a fact.
Adults, whether homosexual or straight, rightly take it for granted that they can have diverse relationships (friends, partner, family relations etc.) with both male and female persons as part of their freedom and children deserve the same freedom. Only if we strive to let all children grow up with a loving father and mother, will we not be responsible for depriving them of the freedom of experiencing relationship diversity in their youngest years from birth onwards regarding the most natural and necessary relationship children can have – namely that with a parent, who is nurturer, role model and friend all in one. I believe this is a matter of morality and basic human rights of children.
Try this simple experiment:
Make sure you only listen to music with male vocals. No Whitney, Morissette, Lennox, Bush and co.. Only Clapton, Presley, Daltry and co.
For two weeks. Whether radio, mp3, hifi or live – no female singing.
You will probably crave for the tender voice of a female singer after 2 weeks – simply because its acoustically different. And thats just acoustics and if you cut out female spoken word as well the deprivation would be even more apparent. Human beings love to and need to interact with and perceive both males and females on various levels of perception regularly and freely as they desire. This applies especially to very young children. Same-sex parents cannot offer this fundamental form of diversity for these children, and in my opinion it would be wrong to intentionally deprive them of it.
I wrote a very similar comment on nomblog.com not long ago. Of course this discussion also reoccurs regularly in european countries, but these simple arguments, which I have stated here, and I believe they are compelling, are actually stated suprisingly rarely, so I thought I would express them here. So its not marraige (and attaining certain related rights) as such which should be the great cause of concern – its specifically concerning the right to adopt or have support via IVF (or surrogacy) where society has to stand up for the rights and dignity of children.
I know there are scientific studies which aparently show that children do well in same-sex househoulds (some say the results are questionable) . But this is not only about psychological assesment – the main goal of life is surely not to achieve good results in a psychological test! This is in my opinion very much about enjoyment, diversity, freedom and rights – for the children.
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