NOM BLOG

Matthew Schmits on French Pro-Marriage Demonstrations: "Modernity Has Not Outmoded Marriage"

 

Matthew Schmitz writes at First Things about the French pro-marriage flash mobs:

"...Rather than assembling outside a church with rosaries and images of the Sacred Heart, these protestors met beneath the Grande Arche de la Défense with some Abba LP’s and a mime. They went, to borrow George Weigel’s phrasing, with the cube rather than the cathedral, and that is significant. The assertion made by such a choice is that marriage is not just a particular religious inheritance but rather something indispensable in every kind of society: Modernity has not outmoded marriage.

We can cheer this canniness while lamenting that faith has become less central to France’s national life. It also reflects a real truth, for opposition to the prime minister’s plans is coming not just from the traditional quarters of society. Another protest, scheduled for November 7, has been signed on to by several left-wing and LGBT organizations. American nightmares of French socialism and liberalism sometimes forget that it’s a country where there are organized socialists for lifeand gay men and women against gay marriage.

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