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BACK IN 2013, at the start of the French campaign to legalise same-sex marriage, an unusual collective with a striking set of symbols emerged in opposition to the plan.
Anti-gay marriage activists of all stripes and backgrounds convened under the umbrella group “La Manif Pour Tous.”
The group’s name (“the demo for all”) was a parody of “le mariage pour tous” (“marriage for all”), the phrase used by French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira to describe her legislation.
Their logo and flag – a man and woman holding hands with a boy and girl, using the colours pink, white and light blue – reflected the gentle and inclusive approach the group attempted.
Despite these efforts, the movement was at times infiltrated by far-right extremists, which led to violent clashes with riot police during protests in Paris.
Its chief spokesperson was Frigide Barjot (real name Virginie Tellene) an eccentric former comedian and performance artist who had converted to Catholicism and become a socially conservative activist.
Although La Manif Pour Tous included founders and representatives from the clergy and France’s large Muslim community, it presented itself as secular and concerned mainly with the rights of children.
Throughout the winter and spring of 2013, hundreds of thousands marched throughout France, often bringing their kids along and happily declaring their love for the LGBT community, while opposing the expansion of marriage and adoption rights.
In classical French style, the group emphasised high concepts such as “otherness” and “filiation”.
At rallies, children carried banners featuring the faces of babies accompanied by slogans like “I need a daddy and a mammy.”
If all this sounds familiar, you’re on the right track.
Much of the French campaign against same-sex marriage appears to have been taken up in Ireland this year – the relatively soft and inclusive tone, gay spokespersons, de-emphasising religion, and of course, the logo itself.
In particular, the group Mothers and Fathers Matter adopted a set of symbols that were strikingly similar to those of La Manif Pour Tous.
Their official logo consisted of a man and woman holding hands with two children, and their unofficial colour code for public events and campaign literature was – you’ve guessed it – pink and light blue.
The group also frequently emphasised the rights and interests of children during the referendum debate.
According to one activist from La Manif Pour Tous Ireland, and the “Irish Sentinels” (named after a French anti same-sex marriage group known for its silent vigils), the connection with the French movement is not a formal one.
But we have promoted some of their big marches with posters and the sentinel-style vigils in front of the French embassy in Dublin.
Apart from the Twitter accounts, we were individually involved in the recent marriage referendum campaign.
Ludovine de la Rochere, president of La Manif Pour Tous, told TheJournal.ie she wasn’t aware of any Irish group using a design similar to theirs, and hadn’t licensed the exact logo to any Irish group.
We have a partnership with La Manif Pour Tous in Italy, Finland and Germany. But in Taiwan and Peru, there were associations that didn’t ask us for permission before using the logo.
‘Flag for straights’
Now, this week, it was the turn of Russia’s ruling political party, United Russia, to co-opt “mammy, daddy, and the kids”.
The Moscow branch of President Vladimir Putin’s party on Wednesday unveiled a new “flag for straights,” in time for the national Day of Family, Love and Fidelity.
Featured in red, blue and white (the colours of the Russian flag) are, once again, a man and woman, this time holding hands with two sons and one daughter, where in the French and Irish iterations there was a gender balance.
The hashtag that accompanies the logo translates as “a real family”, and United Russia official Aleksey Lisovenko was unapologetic in declaring that the campaign was intended to “prevent gay fever” from taking hold in Russia.
As reported by the Moscow Times, he told the Izvestia newspaper:
This is our response to same-sex marriage, to this mockery of the concept of the family. We have to warn against gay fever at home and support traditional values in our country.
When it was put to him that the “real family” was a rip-off of the French logo, Lisovenko reportedly claimed it had been done with consultation and cooperation of La Manif Pour Tous.
Ludivine de la Rochere, angrily denied this, and told Le Figaro:
That’s false. He never had [our permission]. Even if this man had asked for our permission, he wouldn’t have got it.
We condemn all forms of homophobia. There is no link between us and this political party.
Our flag, if it can be defined, represents the right of children to have a father and a mother. This gentleman’s opinions are despicable to me.
Rochere went on to suggest La Manif Pour Tous would take legal action against the party of Putin, stating that the logo is internationally registered intellectual property.
In 2013, Russia outlawed “gay propaganda”, and effectively banned public displays of LGBT pride and solidarity, as well as protests to lobby for further rights within the largely homophobic society.
TheJournal.ie contacted Mothers and Fathers Matter by phone and email for this article, but did not receive any response.
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Germany Mark’s VE day with a public holiday?
Tune in next week when we celebrate International Women’s Day with Harvey Weinstein…
@Phil O’ Meara: danke
@Phil O’ Meara: Well they got what they wanted, they’ve taken over Europe, just took them another 50 years and less violence.
@Phil O’ Meara: I believe they refer to it as “Liberation Day”. Do you find them acknowledging their freedom from fascism so strange?
@Phil O’ Meara: Easter Sunday with Black and Tans anyone? Leo?
@Phil O’ Meara: what public holiday? No public holiday here in Germany
@Phil O’ Meara: Marking and celebrating are two different things. People all over the world mark the date of the Stephen’s day tsunami in Asia or 11th Sept.
@Phil O’ Meara: it’s not a public holiday in Germany, They do Celebrate Liberation Day, which refers to Freedom from Fascism,
@Phil O’ Meara: In the late 1940s the first Chancellor of post-war West Germany was Konrad Adenauer. He publicly denounced the ideology and practice of nazism. In the schools and elsewhere younger generations of Germans have been raised in a pro-democracy, anti-tyranny and pro-international ethos [ even if minority groups of neo-nazis have arisen despite this ] and Germany has also pursued a comprehensive foreign aid programme in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the 1970s Willy Brandt as Chancellor visited Auschwitz and, although not religious in outlook, momentarily knelt at a monument to the holocaust. No modern state has publicly acknowledged and repented its recent evils in the way that Germany has.
@Dearbhal Teresa Cannon: I think it just in Berlin Dearbhal.
@KEN L: My IRA grand uncle was killed by the British army in 1921. He is not human sewage and a great many people around Ireland would take exception to your comment.
@Phil O’ Meara: Open a history book sometime Phil. One that explains what life was like for German people during WW2. Why shouldn’t they also celebrate their liberation from fascism?
@Garreth Byrne: Now compare how England has acknowledged and repented its centuries of colonialism and slaughter. Oh wait….
@KEN L: Oppression breeds resistance.
@Phil O’ Meara: Actually, it wasn’t all of Germany,it was Berlin. One of the federal states. A state obviously more progressive than yourself.
My grandfather got kill on that day in Berlin. He fought on the Eastern Front under Soviet command all the way to the Battle of Berlin.
@KEN L: Best and most under-rated war movie ever
My uncle left the Irish army and flew Lancaster’s with the RAF
@Richard Russell: good on him!
Did he return to Ireland after the war and how was he received?
Have read that soldiers who left the Irish army and fought with the British army were charged with desertion and stripped of pension rights etc and barred from working in the public service.
Would be interested in your views?
@Charles Alexander: desertion in wartime is an offence in all armies including those who of neutrals.
@Brendan Greene: I wasn’t disputing that well known fact but thanks.
@Charles Alexander: actually as I understand it some did not leave the Irish army but technically deserted the Irish army and joined the UK forces while still a serving member of the Irish Defence Forces and therefore are, by definition, deserters.
I may be incorrect but my understanding is that there was no action taken against Irish people in general who were free to go to the UK and join the Allied armies… it is only those who joined the UK army (and I assume if would have applied to any joining the German army as well) while a serving member of the Irish Army.
“An estimated 5,000 Irish soldiers joined the Allies in fighting Nazi Germany during World War II but were persecuted upon their return to Ireland for having deserted the Defence Forces.
They were denied all pay and pension rights and prevented from working for the State for a period of seven years” – https://www.thejournal.ie/defence-forces-amnesty-world-war-two-721706-Dec2012/
There were some anomalies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPO_362 – read more here – but most enlisted soldiers who desert are subject to court martial all over the world.
I am not agreeing or disagreeing with what happened just expanding upon the facts.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: my father was in the LDF during the war years while one of his friends was a capt a in in the Irish Armu and another was a Lietenant in the Royal Engineers serving with the 8th Army (Desert Rats) in North Africa. As a teenager I eavesdropped on their conversations.
I was astonished to learn that the higher pay the British Army were offering was an incentive for some to desert rather than higher motives.
@Richard Russell: did he get a medal?
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: my understanding also. A very interesting part of our history.
Many thanks for the attached – much appreciated.
“If the British soldiers who went up the beaches of Normandy could see England now they would not have gone 40 yards up that beach”
- David Irving
@KEN L: Well David Irving doesn’t think the Holocaust was a thing, so that should tell you all you need to know about him and the nonsense you just quoted.
@KEN L: David Irving? Why not throw in a quote from Lord Haw Haw!
@KEN L: Quoting pro-Nazi ‘historians’ is never a good look.
Or as the daily mail called it the other day
Victory OVER Europe day.
Such nonsense
@Barry: Such an educated bunch that work for the daily fail.
@Barry: That would be the same Daily Mail that was very keen on Herr Hitler right up until 1st September 1939.
Fair play. Was anticipating the usual cacophony of Brit bashing and one upmanalship so common on the Journal. Pleasantly surprised and given an insight into the Irish who joined the allies.
@Jack Inman: My dad’s uncle served in the RAF from 1942-43. Ground crew, not sure where. Had to put up with a lot of anti Irish bullying. Stupid Mick, Spud muncher, the usual sort of stuff. Went AWOL and got a ferry back to Dublin.
And in Poland? You know the place that had 1/5th of their population killed?
It was Russia that really defeated and destroyed the nazis,the yanks and brits won the smaller battles
@tuco: Of course The Soviet Union made great sacrifices in the defeat of Nazi Germany and it must be never never be forgotten. But to for example describe the Normandy landings as a smaller battle ..and remember it wasnt just British and American troops that made liberated France, Belgium, Denmark etc but many other nations too. So what is exactly your point?
Why no report on Russia the country that most turned the tide in WW2 and suffered the bigest loss of life?????
Glory to the Soviet Union, victor in chief of the anti fascist war!
Long live the memory of the outstanding leadership of Joseph Stalin!
Mairfidh a ainm go deo
@Micheál: i don’t think the millions who perished in the Siberian labour camps would share your view!
Stalin was an ansolute monster.
@Micheál: Uncle Joe to you little Michael. One of the few men in history who surpasses Hitler for brutality.
You do realise that the Russians beat the Nazi invaders despite Stalin, not because of him.
Idolising a paranoid psychopath says alot about you.
@Micheál:
Anti communist lies and distortions!
The bourgeoisie will never forgive Stalin for his principled and pro human outlook..let alone credit him with the victory over Hitler.
The Soviet soldiers went to battle with the cry “for the Motherland and Stalin!”
Hence, inter alia, the votes for women in France in 1946 and the NHS in Britain and other concessions to the working class after the war
@Micheál:
Who supported The Spanish Republic?
Who asked (in vain) the “democracies” for collective security against Hitler (in vain)?
Who offered to defend Czechoslovakia?
Who wanted the denazification if Germany post bellum?
Whom did the nazis fear most?
Who never fire bombed the German cities?
-Joseph Vissariónovich Stalin
@Micheál:
Whom did the nazis serve after the war?
To whom did they preferably surrender?
Did they have a good reason to do so?
What personnel set up the (West) German intelligence and police in 1949?
It’s all documented!
@Micheál: Yep, that’s the chap who said one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just a statistic. Lovely chap, our Uncle Joe.
@Eric Dunn:
Eric, that is black propaganda, he never said that.
Put it beside his factual historical record and his writings and you will see
Arc of Triumph?
Did the BBC not roll out Capt Moore?
@MarkQ: no itv have program about him tonight tho
Victory that ensured Ireland could truly become an independent republic and not at best a puppet State of a new London.
have your say