The wisdom of a people

"La Manif pour tous" (everyone’ demonstration), rallied on January 13 to protest against President Hollande’s new bill that would open marriage and adoption to gay couples. The march started at three different points across Paris before it converged in Champ-de-Mars, beneath the Eiffel Tower. Hundreds of thousands of protestors responded to the appeal co-signed by 34 organizations: those for the family, Catholic and protestant groups as well as associations of jurists, paediatricians and gay associations. Five special trains and hundreds of buses from across the Country brought the protesters to Paris already at dawn. Also dozens of French mayors belonging to the group "Mayors for childhood" took the streets. In Trocadero Square, under a three-coloured placard with the wording "Freedom, equality, fraternity also for children", administrators asked "the president of the Republic to withdraw the bill on marriage and adoption between same-sex couples", due to be discussed in Parliament on January 29. The appeal. According to the organizers of the event "the draft bill would undermine civil law suppressing once and for all the terms "husband and "wife", "father" and "mother", replacing them with a-sexual and indifferentiated terms (such as parents). Thus the bill intends to "legally eradicate sexual difference calling into question the very foundations of human identity". The bill also opens to adoption for gay couples, which is yet another reason for concern, as it will "inevitably lead" to the possibility for gay couples to access medically assisted procreation, currently not provided for by the law. Bishops. "The issue – said the spokesman of the French Bishops’ Conference at the Vatican Radio, Msgr. Bernard Podvin – has a strong impact on the values ​​of society, and people with common sense know that the family is something that concerns us all, over and above the fact of their political or religious affiliation. It is natural that the Church take an explicit position: how could she remain indifferent at this popular movement?" Catholic daily La Croix was the first to announce that president Hollande wished to open marriage to gay couples. It was September, and from the start the French bishops voiced their opposition asking that the issue be the subject of the broadest possible consultation. But the bishops have not been the ones to promote the demonstration of January 13, nor the protests held at local level in November. Because – the vice-president of the French bishops, Msgr. Hippolyte Simon told SIR – "If this event is given confessional character, it risks loosing its force. It would provide an argument to those who wish to confine the question to a purely religious sphere, so as to discredit it". "Moreover, this issue involves all citizens. The project would change the Civil Code and, therefore, the very concept of civil marriage".The greetings of Card. Vingt-Trois. As promised, card. André Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris, president of the French bishops, went to greet the protesters in person but didn’t join the march. "I came – he said speaking with journalists – to greet the organizers and through them the protesters to encourage them and to convey my support to their commitment and their efforts. I decided – he added – not to participate in the march because as president of the French Bishops’ Conference I have relations with the government and the President of the Republic, which allows me to express them my point of view without the need to demonstrate". When asked about homosexuals the cardinal replied: "it should be understood that the defense of sonship and parenthood is not an attack on gay people but simply a recognition of a fact: "the child born of a man and a woman must be raised by a man and by a woman".The message of president Hollande. President Hollande sent a message to the organizers of the event in which he explains the reasons of the bill and the intention to move forward because it is "a commitment" taken since the beginning of his presidential term. The French president assured the organizers that a "broad consultation" on the issue is "ongoing". He added "The question is the object of democratic debate, marked by the wish to ensure that the interests of all stakeholders is taken into due account, notably the interest of the child". "It is the responsibility of the legislator – the message continues – to provide a safe legal framework for all families".