FRANCE: Haters Declare Victory After Government Delays Gay Surrogacy Bill

As I reported on Sunday, Manif Pour Tous and the neo-Nazi National Front drew tens of thousands of supporters over the weekend for rallies in opposition over a bill that would grant gay couples the right to use surrogacy to build their families. Today LGBT groups are angry and the haters are celebrating after the Hollande government agreed to delay the bill for at least a year.

Conservatives in France were heralding a victory on this week after President François Hollande’s administration announced it was delaying until at least 2015 a proposal to legalize "medically assisted procreation" (known as PMA in France) and surrogacy for same sex couples. But, in the opposite corner, the decision has drawn harsh condemnation from gay and lesbian groups. Rights group Inter-LGBT denounced the “major political cowardice of the government and the president,” according to a statement. They went on to say Hollande’s government “doesn’t take responsibility for its commitments, from which it has pulled back with an incredible series of back peddling moves over the course of several months,” the statement said. “This umpteenth climb down illuminates the government’s disdain for all lesbians.” Hollande’s administration announced on Monday it was postponing its plans to move ahead with legislation that would have legalized medically assisted procreation, like IVF, for lesbians, and tackled issues like surrogacy. Left wing politicians also seized on the government’s about face as a great failure. "The left has been deceived,” Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon told the AFP. “I call for elections that will inflict severe punishment on the government.”

In better news, Manif Pour Tous did suffer a significant defeat yesterday with the European Parliament.

Manif pour tous', the French movement formed in opposition to France's legalisation of gay marriage last year, failed today to defeat a European Parliament report calling for discrimination protection to be extended to sexual orientation. The movement had conducted a high-profile campaign against the report and cooperated with other groups across Europe to deliver a petition with 200,000 signatures to MEPs. It was the first major pan-European effort by the group since Frigide Barjot, a former leader of the group, announced in Strasbourg in March last year that she wished to expand the movement's activities to a pan-European level. The group staged demonstrations against the report over the weekend in Paris, Lyon, Warsaw, Budapest, Madrid and Brussels with signs that read "Brussels, leave our kids alone".

The vote in the non-binding resolution was 394-196. The petition from Manif Pour Tous had over 200K signature. Read it here.

VIDEO: Yesterday Manif Pour Tous posted the below recap of its weekend hate rallies in Paris and Lyon.