Two weeks after France became the 14th nation to legalize gay marriage, some people still can’t get over it.
Thierry Speitel, mayor of the town of Sigolsheim in the Haut-Rhin area of eastern France, discussed marrying his partner and potentially adopting children in an interview with the local newspaper Derniers Nouvelles d’Alsace. Afterwards, he received bullets in the mail, The Local reports:
Speitel, who is gay himself, said he was “shocked” by the incident and described the act as “odious”….Along with the bullets, Speitel, a practicing Catholic, was sent a copy of his newspaper interview, which contained scrawled handwritten homophobic insults.
Speitel is only the latest elected official to receive death threats over their support for marriage equality. On the eve of the final vote, Speaker of the National Assembly Claude Bartolone received an envelope of gunpowder, warning him to delay the vote. Before that, Socialist deputies Sylviane Bulteau and Hugues Fourage were sent letters threatening to kidnap and kill them or their loved ones if the gay marriage bill was not withdrawn.
First of all, how lax is the French mail system if people can mail actual bullets? Second, the notoriously fickle French have moved on with the national outrage and furor cooling to a heavy-lidded eye roll. According to a recent survey, 67% of French people believe the anti-gay marriage protests should stop. And, as the old adage goes, 67% of Frenchmen can’t be wrong, or something.
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However, if more of the protests were along these homoerotic lines, we could see more people getting on board.
