protests in Paris against gay marriage...

[rover330]

did anyone see news coverage of the very passionate protests in Paris evidently this weekend, against French president Hollande's plan to recognize gay marriage in France?

just the visceral reaction of the people, beneath the Eiffel tower, they looked mad. always reminds me of how many people hate us, and how deep and primal that hatred is.

very sad and discouraging.

[princealbertofb]

Rover, thanks for your message and your support. I was also very disappointed by this demonstration, but they are making as much noise as they can, because they know that it's going to go through.... Most French people think it's time for that change to happen. And I hope all this noise will only show them to be biggoted and sectarian. The government will have to fight but that's the way of modern democracies. Some of the comments I've read are that it's not a time for the government to put this law through when there's so much more to do with the economy and all, but of course these people are just talking through their arses since they aren't really concerned.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Gay Par'i ain't as gay as we would like to think... I'm not shocked.

Yeah, hatred of us is the hind animal brain in people raging at the 'aliens' amongst them.

Nothing can be done other than putting the animal down.

[rover330]

I was just a little shocked.

I guess I have that American naivete that the French are, well, perhaps a bit more liberal or enlightened than that.

The last time I'm aware that the French people were that upset there was someone named Robespierre involved and the Hope diamond and a gaudy Austrian Hapsburg princess and things were worked out in the Reign of Terror on the guillotine.

I was just shocked at the expressions on the faces of the people in the crowd. Pure, bald, naked hatred.

[princealbertofb]

For 300,000 people to have made the trip to Paris to demonstrate shows that these groups are well organised. It's as if Two Genevas worth of population had taken the train to demonstrate. Let's hope it's all the crowd they can muster in a population of 64 million. They are obviously afraid of the power of our numbers... If there is 3-5 % of the population that is gay, that's already 2 to 3 million people who might go against them, not to mention all the straight people who understand what equality is all about.

[princealbertofb]

One thing is sure, it won't be fair sailing.

[rover330]

so what would the protesters have the gay population of France do?

Here in the Southern American Bible Belt, there are 3 alternatives

1. Admit your sin and convert to heterosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ
2. Suicide
3. Live in shame and just keep everything hush hush

I understood that the French Catholic Church had some influence behind these protests as well, and vicariously perhaps Rome? I used to like Pope Benedict because I had heard he was a cat person.

Hasn't he led an Inquisition like purge through all the seminaries on the planet to weed out potential homosexuals? I suppose there is more than one topic that could come from this thread.

[rover330]

The more tightly Benedict tries to hold onto a handful of sand, the more grains will slip through his fingers.

The falling numbers in the congregations, and the increasing irrelevance of the Church in the thoughts and the hearts of the minds of people, demonstrate that his strategy is ultimately backfiring.

[Genersis]

Has there ever been an equivalent sized protest for same-sex marriage in France?
If not, anti-marriage folk have a new thing to brag about.(Though, obviously, they've started already)

[rover330]

I'm just sort of hoping that tomorrow night's news will not be of Hollande being guillotined for suggesting that gay people have the right to live like everybody else.