François Hollande promised while campaigning for president that he would make homosexual “marriage” and adoption legal; the draft law, which will be presented on November 7th, includes these two new “rights” but stops short of giving homosexual couples access to artificial procreation and surrogate motherhood.
Strong opposition seems to have led the Socialist government to ease up on the urgency of their plans to legalize gay “marriage.” Last week Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced that no discussion on the proposed law would take place before the beginning of 2013.
A large number of French Catholic bishops have spoken up against the plan. These include the cardinal of Lyons, Philippe Barbarin, and the cardinal of Paris, André Vingt-Trois, as well as groups of regional bishops and Mgr Marc Aillet, the bishop of Bayonne who is organizing a pro-life meeting in Biarritz at the end of November.
A demonstration of left wing and homosexual organizations is scheduled on November 17th in Paris in support of gay “marriage.” The next day, the traditionalist Catholic lay movement “Civitas” is organizing another pro-traditional marriage march. On January 20th, the 9th March for Life in Paris will concentrate on the issue of same-sex “marriage” and should coincide with parliamentary discussion of the bill.