500,000 Assholes Take to the Streets of France to Protest Gay Rights

Half a million assholes flooded the streets of Paris and Bordeaux this weekend in protest of scientific reproductive assistance for gay families who wish to have children.

The group behind the asshole gathering — La Manif Pour Tous, or Protest For All — has been protesting against rights for gay couples in France for years (in 2013, they tried unsuccessfully to prevent France from legalizing gay marriage). This particular protest was in opposition to scientific intervention in gay couples’ quests to have children.

Generally opposing same-sex relations, the group’s Sunday march was to protest surrogacy and medically-assisted reproduction (ART) for gay couples.

“Because the exploitation of women is intolerable; because the child is not an object; because all children need a father and a mother,” the group’s announcement said as it called for people to come out and support “traditional family values.”

A petition started by the assholes was signed by an additional 200,000 assholes in a matter of four days.

Same sex couples in France are allowed to adopt — even if the child was conceived via ART — but they are not allowed to directly employ ART in conceiving a child of their own. Surrogacy is also illegal in France, no matter what the sexual orientation of the child’s intended legal parents.

Les assholes are also upset over the possibility that gender theory may be taught in French schools. From France 24,

… politicians as well as parent-teacher associations have insisted that “gender theory” is a myth, something that has never been taught, nor never will be taught, in French schools

However, the protesters said it is the government that is refusing to tell the truth.

“The government says that gender theory is an invention, that it doesn’t exist, but we can see it in the books children study at school, in the videos they are shown,” says 24-year-old Aude, a teacher at a primary school in Paris.

Standing next to her, her friend Alix, a 19-year-old psychology student, agrees.

“There are science books that tell children they can choose their gender,” she says. Children come home and ask their parents: ‘Am I a boy or a girl?’.”

Wow. Somebody (a lot of somebodies) needs to rewatch Ma vie en Rose.

Update: Organizers of the protests say that 500,000 people showed up; police put the estimate much lower. Reality is, as reality tends to be, likely somewhere in between.