French Senate debates same-sex marriage bill

The French Senate opened debate Thursday on a controversial bill that would extend the right to marry and adopt to same-sex couples.

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.

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.

At the same time, the legislation has won wide backing from gay rights advocates.

The Senate debate is expected to continue into next week.

France is not the only nation currently wrestling with the polarizing issue.

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.

Legislators in the United Kingdom are also weighing proposals to legalize same-sex marriage.

In the United States, the issue went before the Supreme Court last week, and justices are now deliberating over the matter.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

agencies