What are the implications of the French historian who killed himself in protest against same-sex marriage?

I say good for him. We don’t need people like that in the world. New York State has had gay marriages for a while. Guess what? Our churches still stand, our world hasn’t really changed, and life goes on.

It means that passing legislation does not resolve social conflict. It only masks it, like painting over rust.

I am indifferent about gay marriage. If gays want legal recognition for a committed relationship, I think they should have it, but it is not my problem. I hope they get what they want.

Not everybody agrees with me.

If I were gay, I would try to win the argument with such folks before I handed them laws that they resent.

All that does is put off the reckoning for another day.

This guy’s suicide will only inspire other people to carry his banner. Thus making the social tension last longer than it should. And increasing the chances that in the end it might not produce a happy result.

Too bad. These days, everybody wants what they want NOW, and so they accept what may be a Pyrrhic victory.

I applaud his decision and would implore all other homophobes to do likewise. Just leave the bomb belts at home.

Also some delicious pieces of irony in all of this, are the fact that suiciders go straight to hell, and the fact that the french are complaining about decadence.
Funny frog eaters.

@ragingloli I concur.

We’re better off without him. Good for him.

“This guy’s suicide will only inspire other people to carry his banner. Thus making the social tension last longer than it should.”

That’s what I was thinking may happen, especially with the way people like Marine LePen were almost portraying him as a martyr; is this kind of thing going to increase? As for the whole “waiting” strategy, it depends. When people see an inequality, they usually don’t want to wait for it to be fixed.

@ragingloli Of course it wasn’t just same-sex marriage that he railed against, it was also the “Islamification of Europe” which seems to be a common theme among European conservatives. The ironic part is that if Europe became Islamic, I’m sure there’d be no same-sex marriage, so they’d get their way with that at least. The other ironic thing is that the last time someone took action against the “Islamification of Europe”, they were Anders Bering Breivik and they shot a bunch of kids. Food for thought…

“politicians are praising… protest against future decadence”

ROFL.

Oh. Shit. I had no idea.

He may have eventually become an historian, but he has been involved in far right nationalist activities since the 1950s. He was a former member of a far right terrorist group, the OAS, that killed civilians and soldiers in Algeria and France with bombings and assassinations in the early 1960s.

The French right has been complaining about ‘decadence’ since at least the Third Republic, possibly going all the way back to the Revolution… He’s relying on a very old trope. Xenophobia is a venerable French tradition, too. And it might be surprising to Westerners, but large swathes of French society remain deeply conservative, in particular when it comes to gender roles and sexual preference.

I don’t really know why some French politicians pushed this issue so strongly. Perhaps to deflect attention from their poor economic performance. The culture wars are deployed in a similar manner in the U.S… distracting people from the political and economic questions that actually affect them. In any case, the same sex marriage law has provided a major rallying point for the far right. I’ve got a friend in France who said he sees nothing to stop the escalation of far right homophobic and xenophobic extremism over there. I will need to be significantly more cautious on my next trip over.

Edit: To respond to the question “What are the implications…?” I have to agree with @josie. There is nothing historically inevitable about same sex marriage being a universal right, and from my understanding of French society and history, this law did indeed cover over social conflict rather than resolving it. Using legislation to try to bypass social conflict and political debate is a tradition established early on under the Fifth Republic (the current constitution, founded in 1958).

@bookish1 Thanks for the info. I’m definitely not familiar with French politics. But yeah, I definitely feel like a lot of Europe is very xenophobic; it makes sense with the small homogeneous countries, something that many Americans just can’t relate to.

@DominicX We’re a land of immigrants. We (usually) embrace diversity. These other countries have not had a lot of immigration, I’m guessing, until lately.

@DominicX: I think it has to do with being a small homogenous country, but it’s also a colonial legacy. It’s a weird paradox. The natives were supposed to eventually be able to ‘become’ French, but now the far right ideologues are afraid of just that!

@Adirondackwannabe : France did not have historical levels of immigration akin to those of America, a settler colony after all, but it has been a land of immigration and refuge for exiles since the 1830s. Many of the same racist and culturalist arguments that are used against Muslims, blacks, Arabs, etc., used to be leveled against Poles, Spaniards, Portuguese, etc.

@bookish1 I’m not up on France’s history, other than their colonial pursuits. I need to study their history more, do you have any suggestions for works to read?

@Adirondackwannabe : I’ll PM you.

He killed himself over gay marriage huh? I assume someone made him marry another guy and he didn’t want to. Or was it one of those jailhouse romances that are less than consentual? Either way, if he was forced into marriage, I suppose he had a right to protest. If he wasn’t, he had a right to kill himself (at least in my book).

@Jaxk: Neither of those. Part of what he was apparently distressed about was how French culture has deviated from its roots… Because it was dead butch to begin with…

This was just a pathetic guy from a minority.

Legalising same sex marriage isn’t like paint over rust or political deflection. It is addressing a societal wrong in a very effective way. In five years or so, even most of the right wing idiots will have noticed that the world doesn’t change because some more people have been marrying each other and they will find other causes to fight for.

There will always be a small group left that opposes everything. We just need to make sure they dont get any power over the rest of the people.

So let me get this straight, an anti gay man kills himself by putting the barrel of a gun in his mouth.

Way to symbolize your cause there, jackass. Lol.

Apparently the closet was loaded….

A homophobic frenchie is dead by his own hand, happy days.

Ahhh…just warms the heart, doesn’t it? This brought a genuine smile to my face.

Because of his advanced age it’s not all that shocking to me. He could have already been tired of life, sick of being an old fart with not much to look forward to. If he had been 30 and done this…different story entirely. I strongly encourage others that hold such views to kill themselves as soon as possible rather than waiting til you’re decades into your retirement and basically just looking for an excuse to end it all.

No implications, except for his family who is mourning him. Progress won’t be stopped.

Thought some folks might appreciate this video.
Guerilla theater by a Femen activist in the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Here’s an English article on it.

Both links NSFW.

The implications are that people are stupid. Like @Adirondackwannabe says, legalize it and nothing changes. I’m sorry he felt he had to do anything so rash to make a political point, but it happens.