There is absolutely nothing new about this so-called "Printemps français". The age of its figure-heads is a big tell, but their tactics are an even bigger tell.
The only ones I had heard of before would be Christine Boutin, the defender of family and traditions, and Frigide Bargeot, the self-styled comedian, both sadly a bit too middle-aged for their wannabe status and unfulfilled ambitions to become iconic.
These two, and whoever else is "inspiring" the sectarian half-wits who do the actual gay-bashing, are nothing new. They are the exact same people who have claimed society was going to collapse every time they have felt a change was threatening their status. Universal franchise, workers' rights, women's rights, immigration, and now, gay marriage— what some call evolution, they call chaos.
I mean those mainstream people who have strictly nothing going for them, apart from the fact they belong to the majority. Depending on their social backgrounds, they will be either part of the violent crowd or one of the verbose muses. In both cases they will fight, with the same blind desperation, for the right of that elusive, largely illusory majority to remain unaltered and unchallenged. Out of fear, really. Because being one of the dominant many is their only title to distinction.
What I find rather amusing in the case of the demonstrations organized recently by these supposedly re-energized conservatives is that their tactics are strangely reminiscent of those used, in the early twentieth century, by the anarchists that must have scared their forebears out of their wits. Historical irony, if there is such a thing.
The only logical legal stance on gay marriage is to allow it. Unless you want to make homosexuality illegal again (which the fundamentalist conservative demonstrators do want, of course). If you allow men and women to love whoever they want, you are allowing them to live along the same lines, create families on that basis— and one way or another there shall be children involved.
I have met damaged children of dysfunctional heterosexual couples; I have heard the testimonies of very articulate, balanced children of homosexual couples.
I have yet to hear the testimony of anyone claiming to be damanaged because they have been brought up by two loving women or by two loving men. The only specific danger for them is the fact that French family law does not know them. Yet.
Let the new laws be the "Printemps français", rather than this sad, umpteenth sterile avatar of the French trash.
