{{France\u2019s top court will rule Friday if the country\u2019s mayors should be given the right to opt out of performing same-sex marriages.}}<\/p>\n
Five months after France passed a controversial law legalising gay marriage, a group of mayors and registrars opposed to the legislation have brought their case before France\u2019s Constitutional Council \u2013 the country\u2019s highest legal authority.<\/p>\n
They argue that the same-sex marriage bill, which came into force in May, should include a \u201cfreedom of conscience\u201d clause, giving officiators the right not to carry out same-sex marriages if it conflicts with their personal religious or moral beliefs. <\/p>\n
The lack of such a clause in the bill goes against the French constitution, they claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Constitutional Council has a big decision to make,\u201d Geoffroy de Vries, the lawyer representing the group of mayors, told reporters. \u201cIt could open the door to an exception for those opposed to gay marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Didier Maus, a professor of constitutional law, said it was \u201cdifficult to know\u201d how the Council would view the case but noted that mayors already have the option not to officiate at a marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they are not available, they can delegate this task to their assistants or even a councilor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Council is due to announce its decision on the case at 10:00 local time (08:00GMT).<\/p>\n
However, the mayors have already stated that they intend to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights if the French court rules against them.<\/p>\n
france24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{France\u2019s top court will rule Friday if the country\u2019s mayors should be given the right to opt out of performing same-sex marriages.}} Five months after France passed a controversial law legalising gay marriage, a group of mayors and registrars opposed to the legislation have brought their case before France\u2019s Constitutional Council \u2013 the country\u2019s highest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048846,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10988.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10988.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10988.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10988.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10988.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10988.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10988"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10988"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}