Charlie Hebdo cartoon enrages French Catholics and so much the better

Happy Family snapshot

Oh dear, the Catholic Church and its followers are NOT happy bunnies today, and it's all the fault of that nasty horrid little Charlie Hebdo who has been picking on them again.

The impudent French satirical mag has been a bad boy yet again by placing a truculent cartoon on the front page of its latest issue. It depicts 'The Father' with 'The Son' euhhh, 'behind' it, and "The Holy Ghost" sticking out of bringing up the rear. The caption reads "Cardinal Vingt-Trois has Three Fathers." It has been condemned by church leaders and followers alike and France's Catholic Twitterati has been working overtime with anger.

But why has Charlie Hebdo published the cartoon? Because leading French Catholics such as bishops and cardinals have been waging a viciously homophobic campaign against the government's plans to legalise same-sex marriage, that's why.

Cardinal Vingt-Trois ('vingt-trois means 23 in English) has been at the helm of the campaign, which has seen various church leaders assimilate homosexuality and same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia, polygamy and other crimes. Not only are they infamous and deliberately inflammatory comparisons to make, they are dangerously wrong.

Cardinal 23 has said that same-sex marriage would represent "the marriage of a few imposed upon all." He is wrong. Nobody is imposing anything on anyone, the idea is to give people the freedom to live how they wish.

Cardinal 23 says that the church respects "the sexual reality of human existence." He, and the church, are wrong. The reality of human sexuality is that homosexuality has always existed and is thus a part of human reality.

Cardinal 23 says that "to impose within marriage and the family a vision of man without recognising sexual difference would be a deceptive sham which would shake the foundations of our society and impose discrimination between children." He is wrong. Again, society does recognise the existence of sexual difference and that's precisely why same-sex marriage is being envisaged. But - and ironically - he is right about children because given his views he evidently has no difficulty in discriminating between children and adults who are not what he thinks they should be. For him and others of his ilk some are good/saved and others are bad/lost.

Cardinal 23 bemoans the absence of a national debate on the matter. Wrong again. This issue has been debated by governments, the press and the people for at least 40 years and the result is that the majority of French citizens now support same-sex marriage, which has been a long-standing demand articulated by large sections of the public.

Cardinal 23 is not only anti-homosexual and same-sex marriage, he is anti-abortion, artificial insemination, stem cell research and more and calls them pagan, sectarian and atheist practices.

His list of accusations and condemnation is long and many other church leaders support him.

There is nothing wrong with the Cardinal expressing his point of view of course, that's his right. On the other hand he and his henchmen have sparked off an ugly public debate and the Catholic Church is de facto trying to influence a secular government. There's nothing wrong with that either. After all, all is fair in love and war.

What is wrong however is to expect the rest of society to refrain from riposting. The church has deliberately picked a fight with society and it is beginning to realise that society is fighting back, hence Charlie Hebdo's cartoon. There's nothing blasphemous about it, at least not in a free country. It insults religion? So what? He and his crew have spent centuries insulting the preferences of real human beings, not just a belief.

Besides, given the well-documented history of widespread pedophelia within the Catholic Church it should not be throwing stones from it's glass house and it has no lessons to give anyone.

The fact is that the Catholic Church is getting a well-deserved dose of its own medecine. Besides, Charlie Hebdo's cartoon is a very mild, almost placebo, criticism of the church compared to the church's own putrid and degenerate slander and slurs which, may I repeat, assimilate homosexuality and same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy.


The Catholic Church should be grateful that Charlie Hebdo has not printed a cartoon of a priest being fellated by a choirboy. That has happened before, and the church may now consider itself warned that if its despicable stigmatisation of people's sexual preferences continues it may well find itself being reminded yet again of its age-old rank hypocrisy and double standards in the matter.

'Le Baiser de Marseille' kiss shakes up France's same-sex marriage debate

Photo by Gérard Julien for AFP

Gasp horror outrage! Saperlipopette !!

French governments have always been loath to consider the legalisation of same-sex marriage, but that may thankfully change soon if recently-elected President François Hollande gets his way. He and his government intend to introduce a same-sex marriage and adoption law in 2013 but there has been a storm of protest from some quarters, including bishops, militant Catholics, the extreme right, mayors, some of whom have said they will refuse to allow same-sex marriage ceremonies to take place within their communities, the legal profession and others.

The lobbying was beginning to represent a serious threat to Hollande's proposed legislation, which is why he must surely have been pleased to see it receive some much-needed and well-publicised support earlier this week in the form of two young women from Marseille who kissed each other on the mouth for several seconds in front of a group of indignant participants in a 'One dad One mum' demonstration in Marseille which had been organised by 'l'Alliance VITA', an anti-gay marriage and abortion lobby group. The kiss has been dubbed 'Le Baiser de Marseille.'

The young women involved, Julia Pistolesi, 17, and Auriane Susini, 19, are not in fact gay and they didn't even intend to go to the demo, they just came across it whilst out walking. Once there however they were shocked by the points of view being expressed and decided to stand in full view of the crowd and put on a long and langourous protest kiss, which was greeted with cries of "you are disgusting!" and "you aren't even pretty!" The two women then disappeared into the crowd.

Their kiss was filmed by a friend.

It wasn't the video which put the story on the front pages of the French press however, but the fortuitous decision of Gérard Julien, an AFP photographer who had earlier decided not to go to the demo before changing his mind at the last minute. And he just happened to be present when the girls kissed and was able to take 9 photos of it in a few seconds, one of which is at the top of the page. He relates the story in this article.

Both the photo and the video have gone viral here and all I can say is that I'm very happy to hear it.  Hats off to these two young women for having the courage to carry out their action in front of a crowd which, for all they knew, may have turned ugly and angry.

Oh, and the latest on this story is that similar initiatives have been seen since at related demos in other cities. As for the photo, some commentators are even beginning to compare it to Robert Doisneau's iconic 1950 photograph, 'Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville' (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville, which shows a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris.