In the wake of tens of thousands of people participating in pro-traditional family protests in France and throughout Europe, French President François Hollande backed down from submitting a new family-law bill to parliament that would make legal “assisted procreation for lesbian couples” and “surrogate motherhood for gay men” who want children.
According to France24, a source in Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s office said Monday that France’s socialist government would no longer present a bill to modernize family law to reflect “diversity” of families.
Over 100,000 protesters in Paris and Lyon, many Catholic and some Muslim, and thousands more in Brussels, Bucharest, Madrid, Warsaw, and Rome, demonstrated in favor of marriage and the traditional family last Sunday.
The demonstrations were led by La Manif Pour Tous (Protest for Everyone), a fast-growing coalition of groups that has organized massive rallies against same-sex marriage legislation throughout Europe.
Though France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls warned the marchers that “no excesses” would be tolerated during the protests, and subsequently ordered a heavy security presence, the demonstrations, composed mostly of families with young children in strollers, were peaceful.
Ludovine de la Rochère, head of La Manif Pour Tous, said the government’s decision was a victory for the conservative movement.
“What was outlined in this bill was not conducive to the interests of children or of the family,” de la Rochère said.
As Edward Pentin reports at Newsmax, Jean-Pierre Delaume-Myard, a spokesman for La Manif Pour Tous – who is himself gay – told Vatican Radio Friday that children are the “first victims” of same-sex marriage.
“It deprives them of a father and a mother,” he said. “The desire to have a child by a homosexual cannot justify any kind of solution to fill this gap. Every child has the right to have a father and a mother.”
Delaume-Myard added that France’s same-sex marriage legislation – known as “Taubira law” – was imposed on the French people, even by repressing opposition through violence, a charge that is currently under investigation.
Claiming that “the majority of homosexuals had never asked for such a thing,” Delaume-Myard said the fact that “civil unions” have been in existence in France for years and have only been chosen by four percent of gay people in the country is evidence that same-sex marriage is not a popular cause for this group.
Moreover, medically assisted procreation and surrogate pregnancies, he said, turn women and children into mere commodities.
Protesters in other parts of Europe were demonstrating as well against the Lunacek report on equality regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. The report calls for a new “road map” within the European Union to attack “homophobia” and demand that gay and lesbian rights be considered human rights.
The Lunacek report also demands the promotion of “equality and non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity throughout its youth and education programmes.”
In Italy, La Manif Pour Tous demonstrated against the Lunacek report. Director Jacopo Coghe said the rally was “to affirm that we will not be instruments of violence and destruction” and will “defend the family, paying in person if necessary.”
Coghe added that “only the union between a man and a woman can form a stable construct that is the family, the place par excellence of solidarity and acceptance.”
In the United States, as Breitbart News reported, Attorney General Eric Holder set into motion new measures that will expand same-sex marriage privileges in all federal courtrooms to eliminate distinctions between traditional marriages and same-sex unions.
Equating protests against same-sex “marriage” with racial discrimination, Holder said, “As all-important as the fight against racial discrimination was then, and remains today, know this: My commitment to confronting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity runs just as deep.”
The Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP), however, sharply disagrees with Holder.
Last August, Rev. William Owens, chairman of CAAP, told Breitbart News that the black community “knows that our civil rights were won through a strong faith in God, and most still believe that the truths of our faith say that marriage should be between a man and a woman.”
Owens said the Obama administration’s announcement of support for same-sex marriage was a turning point for him.
“Obama is the most powerful man in the country, and he sent a signal that same-sex marriage is okay. Well, we don’t think it’s right, and that day was the day the dynamics changed,” he asserted.
Holder states his new policies will extend “rights” to same-sex couples even in states that do not legally recognize their marriages.
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