The French Senate opened debate Thursday on a controversial bill that would extend the right to marry and adopt to same-sex couples.<\/p>\n
The lower house has already approved the legislation. If it passes the Senate, it would mark the biggest step forward for French gay rights advocates in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
But the plan faces stiff opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, other religious groups and social conservatives, with huge numbers turning out for protest marches in Paris in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the legislation has won wide backing from gay rights advocates.<\/p>\n
The Senate debate is expected to continue into next week.<\/p>\n
France is not the only nation currently wrestling with the polarizing issue.<\/p>\n
Uruguayan senators voted overwhelmingly in favor of a same-sex marriage measure Tuesday, despite vocal opposition from the Catholic Church. Next week, lawmakers in the lower house are expected to vote on the Senate’s version.<\/p>\n
Legislators in the United Kingdom are also weighing proposals to legalize same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n
In the United States, the issue went before the Supreme Court last week, and justices are now deliberating over the matter.<\/p>\n
Nine states and the District of Columbia issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, including three states — Maryland, Washington, and Maine — where voters approved it in ballot initiatives last year. The other 41 states have specific laws blocking gays and lesbians from legally marrying.<\/p>\n
The first same-sex couples walked down the aisle in the Netherlands in 2001. Since then, almost a dozen countries have passed laws allowing same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships, including Canada, South Africa, Belgium and Spain.<\/p>\n
In Argentina, the push to legalize same-sex marriage met with fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — then the archbishop of Buenos Aires and now the pope — engaging in a notorious war of words with the government over the issue. It was approved in 2010.<\/p>\n
The issue also has divided Australia, where lawmakers voted against a bill to legalize same-sex marriage last September. A poll for the advocacy group Australian Marriage Equality indicated that 64% of those surveyed “support marriage equality.”<\/p>\n
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