Anti-Gay Marriage Violence Increases in France - A Wake Up Call for America

Riot police officers stood by on Sunday at the end of a demonstration in Paris where tens of thousands of opponents of a same-sex marriage bill had gathered.

The clear and present danger far right Christians pose to constitutional government continues to be put under a spot light in France where the violence continues to grow as Christofascists go on additional rampages as they confront the reality that they are about to lose the special privilege of forcing their religious beliefs on marriage on all citizens.   And the mindset revealed is not unique to France.  It's alive and well in America where the Manhattan Declaration - penned by a who's who of anti-gay forces - urges civil disobedience and a refusal to obey the law if Christofascists do not like the laws.  And one hears the same message from hate mongers like AFA's Bryan Fischer and FRC's Tony Perkins who urge Kool-Aid drinkers to stand up to persecutors.  The ones doing the persecution, of course, are actually the Christofascists themselves.  Here is what FRC was telling pastors and sheeple in the pulpits until just recently until confronted by Jewish groups:

Homosexuals claim: “We were born this way; it is in our genes; God made us gay.” They cite old “gay gene” studies predominantly conducted by researchers who are homosexuals; studies that have been repudiated by credible research. Yet these same biased and discredited studies have been widely publicized by the liberal media as true and factual. They essentially practice Joseph Goebel’s [sic] Nazi philosophy of propaganda, which is basically this: Tell a lie long enough and loud enough and eventually most mindless Americans will believe it.

The ones telling the lies on this issue are the folks like Perkins and Fischer.  And worse yet, much of their anti-gay propaganda is based on the Nazi campaign against the Jews in the 1930's.   The New York Times looks at the growing violence of the "godly Christian" crowd in France.   It should be a wake up call to Americans.  Here are article highlights:

On Tuesday afternoon, France is expected to become the 14th country to legalize marriage for all couples, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

The final vote in the legislature is expected to be quick, since the Socialist government of President François Hollande has a safe voting majority. But there has been an intensification of opposition to the bill in the past few weeks, as Mr. Hollande’s critics have used demonstrations against it as a way of attacking the president himself. 

[T]he demonstrations have also become more violent and homophobic, with a series of nightly demonstrations last week around Parliament that resulted in clashes with riot police officers and a number of arrests. Even opposition leaders have bemoaned the way harder-right groups have infiltrated the demonstrations, and there has been a small surge in violence against gay men and lesbians, with some beatings and angry, offensive words on social media.

Mr. Hollande and his government have pressed ahead with the bill and condemned homophobia and violence, but the sometimes ugly tone of the protests has prompted the government to accelerate the vote to Tuesday, to get the bill passed and out of the way. Presidential aides say they want the matter finished before another large demonstration planned for this month, though opponents say they will continue to protest in May. 

[O]n Monday, Manuel Valls, the interior minister, accused protesters and political opponents on the right of “unleashing homophobic speech.” Speaking to Europe 1 radio, Mr. Valls conceded that opponents of the bill were “numerous,” but said they represented “a minority compared to the millions” who voted for Mr. Hollande as president a year ago, when he promised to pass a same-sex marriage bill in his first year in office. 

Also on Monday, the president of the National Assembly received a letter threatening “war” and attacks on Socialist lawmakers if the lower house approved the legislation, the French news media reported. The letter was said to have contained gunpowder. 

Young people in France, as in the United States, he said, see marriage as “a fundamental right” for same-sex couples as well as straight ones, while older people are “more marked by Catholicism and remain more traditional” in their views of marriage as an ancient institution that binds men and women and protects children. 

More than half of the countries in the European Union have some sort of civil union, if not marriage, open to same-sex couples, Mr. Bréchon said. “The movement is clear. It is gradual, but it is clear.”