France legalize same sex marriage.... hmmm! #gbb

France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after a
wrenching national debate and protests that flooded the streets
of Paris. Legions of officers and water cannon stood ready near
France's National Assembly ahead of the final vote, bracing for
possible violence on an issue that galvanized the country's
faltering conservative movement.
The measure passed easily in the Socialist-majority Assembly,
331-225, just minutes after the president of the legislative body
expelled a disruptive protester in pink, the color adopted by
French opponents of gay marriage.
"Only those who love democracy are here," Claude Bartelone,
the Assembly president, said angrily.
In recent weeks, violent attacks against gay couples have spiked
and some legislators have received threats -- including
Bartelone, who got a gunpowder-filled envelope on Monday.
One of the biggest protests against same-sex marriage drew
together hundreds of thousands of people bused in from the
French provinces -- conservative activists, schoolchildren with
their parents, retirees, priests and others. That demonstration
ended in blasts of tear gas, as right-wing rabble-rousers, some
in masks and hoods, led the charge against police, damaging
cars along the Champs-Elysees avenue and making a break for
the presidential palace.
Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told lawmakers that the first
weddings could be as soon as June.
"We believe that the first weddings will be beautiful and that
they'll bring a breeze of joy, and that those who are opposed to
them today will surely be confounded when they are overcome
with the happiness of the newlyweds and the families," she said.
When President Francois Hollande promised to legalize gay
marriage, it was seen as relatively uncontroversial. But the issue
has become a touchstone as his popularity has sunk to
unprecedented lows, largely over France's ailing economy.
But the most visible face in the fight against gay marriage -- a
former comedienne who goes by the name of Frigide Barjot --
said the movement named "A Protest for Everyone" will
continue beyond the law's passage and possibly field candidates
in 2014 municipal elections. She said anyone involved in protest
violence would be marginalized, but blamed the government for
its failure to listen.
"The violence comes from the way in which this was imposed,"
Barjot told France Info radio.
French conservatives, decimated by infighting and the election
loss of standard-bearer Nicolas Sarkozy, had found a rallying
cause in same-sex marriage. Hoping to keep the issue alive, the
conservative UMP party planned to challenge the law in the
Constitutional Council.
French civil unions, allowed since 1999, are at least as popular
among heterosexuals as among gay and lesbian couples. But
that law has no provisions for adoption, and the strongest
opposition in France as far as same-sex couples goes comes
when children are involved. According to recent polls, just over
half of French are opposed to adoption by same-sex couples --
about the same number who said they favored same-sex
marriage.
Christophe Crepin, spokesman for the police union UNSA, says
the extraordinary security Tuesday includes a total of about
4,000 officers in the area near the National Assembly building
and water cannon positioned nearby. One group of anti-riot
police swarmed the banks of the Seine River about a quarter-
mile from the legislature, hours before protests were scheduled
there.
France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage. On the
cover of Tuesday's Liberation newspaper, the famed gay
photographers Pierre and Gilles took over the front page and
several of the inside pages, splashing them with some of their
most provocative photos, including one of three soccer players
-- nude but for the footwear -- facing the camera.
In New Zealand, where gay marriage enjoys popular support,
people gathered outside Parliament and joined in singing a
traditional Maori love ballad after a vote last week making it
legal. Nine states and the District of Columbia in the U.S. also
recognize such marriages, but the federal government does not.