“The message from France is the campaign isn’t over — these laws rely on a big lie, and no lie can survive,” said Antoine Renard, president of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe.
“Our own government has succeeded in its goal of dividing opinion in the Catholic Church, so the Church’s authorities need to be prudent. But there’s a lot of teaching to be done, and I hope our pastors will provide it,” he said.
France’s same-sex marriage law, which allows gay and lesbian couples to marry and adopt children, was signed by French President Francois Hollande May 18. Renard said Catholic groups would step up their campaign against the law before municipal and European Parliament elections in early 2014 and would try to block the government’s “gender- based reforms” in education and family life.
“Although this law has been adopted, we can still fight against its application and pressure political parties to show stronger commitment,” Renard said. “Although it will be difficult to repeal or revise it, we’re determined to try and will be encouraging campaigners in other countries to do the same.”
Renard said opponents of same-sex marriage would seek to invalidate the law by having marriage inscribed in France’s constitution as “the union of a man and woman.”
He added that lawyers also were checking whether the law violated France’s international commitments, including the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which enshrines a child’s rights “to know and be cared for by his or her parents.”
He said France’s constitutional council ruled that marriage can be modified by law, “so we can use this in our own fight.”
Same-sex marriage is also allowed in Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, and legislation is under consideration in Britain. Same-sex adoption is expected to become legal in traditionally Catholic Austria July 1, to comply with a February ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, while the highest constitutional court in Germany, where same-sex adoption is allowed, strengthened the fiscal rights of homosexuals June 6.