European Court of Human Rights has just ruled that the French courts did not discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation, when French court declared a marriage between a same-sex couple to be not valid.
Chapin and Charpentier v. France (no. 40183/07)*
The applicants, Stéphane Chapin and Bertrand Charpentier, are French nationals who were born in 1970 and 1973 and live in Plassac (France). The case concerned the right to same-sex marriage.
In May 2004 Mr Chapin and Mr Charpentier submitted a marriage application to the civil registry department of Bègles municipal council. The municipal civil registrar published the banns of marriage. The public prosecutor at the Bordeaux tribunal de grande instance served notice of his objection to the marriage on the Bègles municipal civil registrar and on Mr Chapin and Mr Charpentier.
Despite the objection, the mayor of Bègles performed the marriage ceremony and made an entry to that effect in the register of births, marriages and deaths. On 22 June 2004 the public prosecutor brought proceedings against Mr Chapin and Mr Charpentier in the Bordeaux tribunal de grande instance, seeking to have the marriage annulled.
On 27 July 2004 the court annulled the applicants’ marriage and ordered its judgment to be recorded in the margin of their birth certificates and the marriage certificate. The Bordeaux Court of Appeal upheld the judgment. Mr Chapin and Mr Charpentier appealed on points of law to the Court of Cassation, which on 13 March 2007 dismissed their appeal.
Relying on Article 12 (right to marry) taken together with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), Mr Chapin and Mr Charpentier submitted that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples amounted to a discriminatory infringement of the right to marry. Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) taken together with Article 14, they contended that they had been discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation.
No violation of Article 12 taken together with Article 14
No violation of Article 8 taken together with Article 14
Radical Christian Concern Continues to hate LGBT
The radical Christian hate LGBT group Christian Concern writes : At least 16 Member States of the Council of Europe have constitutional provisions that define marriage as a union of a man and a woman, and the number of countries with such constitutional provisions keeps increasing.
Despite this, there are concerns that pressure from radical LGBT activists will result in states redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.
To remind the radical Christian Concern, Same-sex marriage has been legal in France since 18 May 2013 and even European Court of Human Rights rules in a case from 2007 there was no discrimination, but if the case would have been from after 18 May 2013 – the ruling would have been different.
