Supporters of Same-Sex Marriage Rally in France

[TotallyOz]

PARIS Thousands of people marched in Paris on Sunday to show their support for a same-sex marriage bill that lawmakers will begin to debate on Tuesday.

Demonstrators waved banners emblazoned with phrases like Equality of rights is not a threat and chanted: What do you want? Equality! When do you want it? Now! Another placard showed a version of the French governments seal, but with two Mariannes kissing. Under the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity was the slogan No more, no less!

According to the police, the march attracted about 125,000 people, twice the number that took part in a similar demonstration in mid-December. Two weeks ago, a rally by those opposed to the proposal drew what the police said were 340,000 people into the streets of Paris.

François Hollande, the Socialist president, promised during his campaign to legalize gay marriage within a year of taking office in May 2012. And with effective majorities in both houses of Parliament, Mr. Hollande and his government should be able to beat back various efforts by opponents to kill or amend the bill. It has been suggested that even given the long legislative process, the bill could become law as early as May.

In contrast to the opponents who demonstrated two weeks ago, many of the marchers on Sunday were relatively young and personally invested in the future of the law.

Nicolas Marquart, 37, a physiotherapist, made the trip from Strasbourg with his partner, with whom he is in a civil solidarity pact, and another gay couple. Im here as a gay man, and because it would be nice, since we are still in the 21st century after all, to see our morals evolve. It would be a good thing to all have the same rights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/world/europe/supporters-of-same-sex-marriage-rally-in-france.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&

[BiBottomBoy]

This is really getting scary here.

Marianne Le Pen, who heads the most right wing party in France has gotten a lot of political traction by being vocally against same sex marriage. In fact, even though her group openly says that French citizens of Arab descent should be expelled from France, she now has the support of the majority of Arab voters because of this issue.