Catholics, the “Theory of Gender,” and the Turn to the Human in France: A New Dreyfus Affair?

Abstract

One of the most striking features of the protests against gay marriage that escalated in France throughout the fall of 2012 and the spring of 2013 is how quickly the organizers stopped talking about gay marriage. The massive street demonstrations that surprised many inside and outside of France claimed, at first, to be reacting against a bill put forth in November 2012 by Christiane Taubira, the minister of justice of the recently elected government of Francois Hollande. The law that would eventually be known as mariage pour tous or “Marriage for All” was designed to comply with one of Hollande’s campaign promises to open marriage and adoption to same-sex couples—a seemingly uncontroversial proposition that in May 2012 was backed by two-thirds of the French population. Rather than presenting the bill as providing for “gay marriage,” Hollande’s government cleverly embraced the rhetoric of republican universalism by portraying it as one that would allow “marriage for all”—as a new law that would fight discrimination and finally make the institution of marriage truly universal and truly republican. A few days after Taubira’s announcement, an organization by the name of the “Manif pour tous” ð“Demonstration for All,” a title that also clearly played with