From the NY Daily News.
Excerpt:
Jean-Michel Colo stirred up controversy by becoming the first French official to formally refuse to officiate at the wedding of a gay couple, Jean-Michel Martin and Guy Martineau-Espel. The Arcangues mayor’s actions defied a landmark French law allowing same-sex unions.
Two men are suing the mayor of a French village for refusing to marry them, in the first reported legal action over same-sex marriage since it was legalized in May amid strong, sometimes violent opposition.
Guy Martineau-Espel and Jean-Michel Martin, both in their 50s, filed a legal complaint against the mayor for refusing to marry them at the town hall of Arcangues, a village in southwestern France where the couple has lived for a decade.
“We will fight this battle to the finish,” Martineau-Espel told Reuters.
France adopted legislation in May that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry and adopt children, following in the footsteps of 13 other countries.
But the move divided opinion in France and came at a political price for the already unpopular government of President Francois Hollande.
Opponents of the law, led by Catholics and conservatives, staged mass street protests, some of which ended in violence, and the debate was also blamed for a spate of homophobic attacks in the mainly Catholic country.
Weddings in France are conducted by mayors or their deputies at town halls, of which there are about 36,000.
The couple in Arcangues applied to marry in May but the right-wing mayor, Jean-Michel Colo, turned them down.
Colo was summoned earlier this week by a government official and told to apply the law. He asked for more time to consider his options, prompting the couple to take action.
A refusal to comply with the gay marriage law could mean Colo faced up to five years in jail and a fine of up to 75,000 euros ($98,000).
“Even if in the end we manage to get married, we will stay the course with our legal complaint,” said Martineau-Espel.
This is pretty standard for countries that legalize gay marriage. You can just look at these examples from Canada, for confirmation that this is what happens after a country legalizes gay marriage. And they all promise that religious liberty will be protected before it’s passed, too. It’s even happening in Massachusetts.
Do you believe Obama when he says that our religious liberty will be protected even if marriage is redefined to include gay marriage, polygamy and polyamory? I think you can believe Obama as much about that as you can believe him about being able to keep your health care plan or about the Benghazi attack being caused by a Youtube video. The man’s a pathological liar, and that’s been proven over and over again.