They started with this “civil union which is not the same thing as a civil marriage” notion; they got that earlier than many other countries which have civil marriages/unions (call it X but the same whether SS or DS), but then it took them a while to get the upgrade.
For some of the countries which started the process later, part of the reason we went to the “equal rights” faster is that we could look at different models and see that “separate but equal” is a piece of crap and that “gradations of marriage” can actually be a fine thing - so long as they’re not done on a “separate but equal” basis. Plus the gradations model makes dealing with international cases a pain inna legal system - is a “semi-marriage” from Potatonia equal to a “marriage” from Upper Lobatia or not? How about a “civil union” or a “registration in lieu of marriage” from Lower Sussonia, which happen to be different things?
France* is *France - meaning it’s not all Paris. I dated a girl from rural France and her attitudes weren’t much different that those of rural KY, where I grew up.
I thought the opposite - I was under the impression that the Catholic Church was entrenched in France to the point where the country wouldn’t even consider SSM, much less legalize it.
Not really. France has the strictist seperation of church & state in Western Europe, and the average French person barely pays lip service to the RCC even if they consider themselves Catholic.
Well France did decriminalize sodomy in 1792 when they ditched all the other religion based laws like the ban on blasphemy & sacrilege. At the sime time marriage became a civil institution and divorce was legalized. Granted divorce was banned 20 yrs later when the Bourbons were restored, but it was relegalized in the 1880s; most Southern Europe or majority Catholic countries had to wait until the 1970s for divorce. Italy & Spain did.
A French MP, who wrote a book arguing against same-sex marriage, accidently voted in favour of it! :smack: He got so caught up in the debate he pressed the wrong button.