French MP Christian Vanneste’s been fined €3 000 and must also pay €2 000 in court fees for saying gays are “inferior” to straights and posed a “danger to humanity”. Vanneste caused a stir back in 2004 when a French mayor married a gay couple. While the government refused to back the marriage, they didn’t refuse to include gays in the nation’s comprehensive ant-hate laws, which say that inflaming negative opinion constitutes a crime.
Not surprisingly, French gay activists celebrated the verdict. South Africa’s The Independent reports:
Gay and civil rights groups welcomed the ruling, saying in a statement it “aimed to punish homophobic comments which should be fought because they inspire and legitimise verbal and physical attacks”.
Vanneste’s not so pleased and says he’ll take the matter up with the EU’s Human Rights Court.
Legal types, meanwhile, point to the court’s decidedly pro-gay stance to suggest he’ll lose. We certainly hope so. Ain’t nothing like watching a anti-homo-politico getting what’s coming to ’em.
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werdna
I understand that speech is not protected in Europe in the way that it is in the US, but I am always disturbed to see government power exercised to limit or control speech in this way. We are fortunate in the US to enjoy the protection of the first amendment, this is one of the remarkable and wonderful things about our country. It’s dispiriting to see queers, who should be acutely aware of the dangers of legislating acceptable speech, cheering this expansion of state authority simply because we disagree with the speech in this particular case.