For the past year I've been living in France. I was very proud of them when recently they passed a marriage equality law, but I was astonished at the vehemence (not to mention the vitriol) of a sizeable proportion of the population who mobilised to oppose it.
Now, the French are good at mobilising to oppose things - laws, politicians, current economic conditions, and, in at least one famous case, nothing at all, just a general desire to say "non!" - so it's not that surprising that there would be marches in the streets from a loose coalition of conservative Christian groups (some indirectly financed by the Catholic church in France, others more directly by evangelical groups in the US), far-right extremists (whose violent attacks on Femen counter-protestors must have revolted anyone who saw the videos - if you weren't revolted, you're an asshole), and Muslim groups, led by a nutjob former comedian and satirist by the pen-name of "Frigide Barjot", who struggled to hide her own bigotry almost as much as she struggled to manage the latent racism, misogyny and predilection for violence of some of her co-protestors.
What was surprising was the clever way in which the protest was framed. Adopting pink (with a smattering of baby blue) for their promotion material, the "Manif' pour tous" (Demo For Everyone) was presented as an all-embracing protest to protect the entire population from the dangers of same-sex marriage, on the basis that the new law would remove the intrinsic human right of a child to a mother and father, and open the door to adoption of children by gay couples, thus threatening the very fabric of childhood. Of course the same people who hit the streets to protect children from married gay people seem to have stayed in their homes when it came to protecting children from institutionalised abuse, but which of us can say that we are completely consistent?
Now, setting aside the ludicrous idea that a child has the right to a mother and father, which would leave many children of single parents scratching their heads and wondering who to sue, the idea of "gay adoption" is worth addressing.
First, we shall set aside the assertion that gay adoption shall create more gays on the basis that (a) only an imbecile could believe it and (b) even if it did, then so fucking what?
So let me switch track here. Let me talk about my wife's family, and our daughter.
Pomme is six weeks old. (Her name is Juliette, but she looked like a cooking apple when she was born, and the nickname has stuck.) She's adored by everyone around her, as you'd expect. She has a father (me) and a mother (my wife) and a four-year-old big sister, her grandmother, great-grandmother, step-grandfather, great-aunts, cousins and a godmother... and that's just in the area. Elsewhere she has two grandfathers, another grandmother, more cousins, an aunt and uncle and another great-grandmother, all of whom love and care for her.
One of those cousins (actually my wife's cousin, and also her godfather) is a 50-year-old man who lives with another man. (I'm going to call him "Raoul", because my wife hates that name.) Raoul used to be married to a woman. He has a son of his own - a fine young man in his early twenties - and also stepped up and was father to the two daughters his wife had had from an earlier relationship. He still fills that role, despite being divorced from their mother for close to a decade now. He's a gay man, and a brilliant father.
But it's not "Raoul" that my wife was thinking of recently as she nursed Juliette. It was her grandfather Yvan, who died a year ago.
A difficult man at the best of times, Yvan was born between the wars in southern France. The how of Yvan losing his parents is a whole story on its own - his mother died in childbirth and his father (a soldier who went on to become a radical communist, fight in the Spanish civil war, take part in a mutiny on the Black Sea and spent time in early Soviet Russia before returning to France and trying, without success, to find his adult son) was refused permission to keep him - but suffice it to say that very shortly after his birth Yvan ended up in an orphanage.
Growing up in an institution, baby Yvan was denied the love that Juliette is now getting. It's no wonder that he became the man he did. If there's a human right that children can lay claim to, it is not that of a mother and father, it is the right to be loved by someone good.
If Yvan could have had a father like Raoul, or two fathers like Raoul and his partner, he would have been a happier, gentler man, and the world would be a better place. This is why, bigotry aside, we need marriage equality, and why marriage equality should open the door to adoption equality.
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| "We're not homophobic, we just don't want gay people to have the same rights as everyone else." |
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| Two cute straight girls kissing in front of some stuck-up French biddies. |
Now, setting aside the ludicrous idea that a child has the right to a mother and father, which would leave many children of single parents scratching their heads and wondering who to sue, the idea of "gay adoption" is worth addressing.
First, we shall set aside the assertion that gay adoption shall create more gays on the basis that (a) only an imbecile could believe it and (b) even if it did, then so fucking what?
So let me switch track here. Let me talk about my wife's family, and our daughter.
Pomme is six weeks old. (Her name is Juliette, but she looked like a cooking apple when she was born, and the nickname has stuck.) She's adored by everyone around her, as you'd expect. She has a father (me) and a mother (my wife) and a four-year-old big sister, her grandmother, great-grandmother, step-grandfather, great-aunts, cousins and a godmother... and that's just in the area. Elsewhere she has two grandfathers, another grandmother, more cousins, an aunt and uncle and another great-grandmother, all of whom love and care for her.
One of those cousins (actually my wife's cousin, and also her godfather) is a 50-year-old man who lives with another man. (I'm going to call him "Raoul", because my wife hates that name.) Raoul used to be married to a woman. He has a son of his own - a fine young man in his early twenties - and also stepped up and was father to the two daughters his wife had had from an earlier relationship. He still fills that role, despite being divorced from their mother for close to a decade now. He's a gay man, and a brilliant father.
But it's not "Raoul" that my wife was thinking of recently as she nursed Juliette. It was her grandfather Yvan, who died a year ago.
A difficult man at the best of times, Yvan was born between the wars in southern France. The how of Yvan losing his parents is a whole story on its own - his mother died in childbirth and his father (a soldier who went on to become a radical communist, fight in the Spanish civil war, take part in a mutiny on the Black Sea and spent time in early Soviet Russia before returning to France and trying, without success, to find his adult son) was refused permission to keep him - but suffice it to say that very shortly after his birth Yvan ended up in an orphanage.
Growing up in an institution, baby Yvan was denied the love that Juliette is now getting. It's no wonder that he became the man he did. If there's a human right that children can lay claim to, it is not that of a mother and father, it is the right to be loved by someone good.
If Yvan could have had a father like Raoul, or two fathers like Raoul and his partner, he would have been a happier, gentler man, and the world would be a better place. This is why, bigotry aside, we need marriage equality, and why marriage equality should open the door to adoption equality.
