Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Same-Sex Marriage in France and Spain: Comparing Resistance in a Centralized Secular Republic and the Dynamics of Change in a “Quasi-Federal” Constitutional Monarchy

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage

Part of the book series: Global Queer Politics ((GQP))

  • 1930 Accesses

Abstract

By passing legislation giving same-sex couples the right to marry in 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to grant equal marriage rights at national level, regardless of sexual orientation. In 2013, France became only the 14th country to do so. In order to test the hypothesis of a contrast between an assumed rupture with the political legacy for Spanish democracy and an attachment of the French Republic to an idealized inheritance, an analysis of public discourse—in particular, parliamentary debates—is cross-referenced in the French and Spanish institutional contexts. The French socialist government presents same-sex marriage law as being in historical continuity with the ideals of the Republic, defining marriage as a republican institution embodying equality and secularization, while the Spanish socialist government has used marriage as a source of political polarization and proof of modernity.

I would like to thank Maxime Forest for his guidance and support as regards the Spanish case, particularly in connection with his participation in the Quality in Gender + Equality Policies (QUING) project, as well as Bronwyn Winter for her always meaningful advice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For a detailed theoretical and methodological framework of the MAGEEQ project (FP5), see www.mageeq.net; for the QUING project (FP6), see www.quing.eu

  2. 2.

    As late as the mid-1990s, during the Episcopal Conference, the C atholic Church’s campaign against homosexuals argued that homosexuality is the result of bad habits, bad company, and negative early experiences. It intensified its activity from the 2000s onward (i.e. published several official press statements, presenting a pastoral directory for the family in 2003).

References

  • Almunia, Joaquim. 2001. Memorias Politicas. Madrid: Punto de lectura.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alonso, Alba, and Maxime Forest. 2012. Is Gender Equality Soluble into Self-Governance? Regionalizing and Europeanizing Gender Policies in Spain. In The Europeanizaion of Gender Equality Policies: A Discursive-Sociological Approach, ed. Emanuela Lombardo and Maxime Forest, 192–213. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Assemblée nationale. 2013. Journal officiel de la République française. Second Session, January 29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ayoub, Phillip M., and David Paternotte, eds. 2014. LGBT Activism and the Making of Europe: A Rainbow Europe ? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bargel, Lucie, Laure Bereni, Michel Bozon, Delphine Dulong, Éric Fassin, Rose-Marie Lagrave, Sandrine Lévêque, Frédérique Matonti, and Florence Rochefort. 2014. Désolante capitulation gouvernementale. Le genre ne concerne pas que les bobos. Le Monde, February 7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baruch, Marc Olivier. 2013. Gay Marriage and the Limits of French Liberalism. Dissent 60: 24–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battaglia, Mattea, and Gaëlle Dupont. 2014. Égalité garçon-fille: le ‘plan d’action’ qui cache un recul du gouvernement. Le Monde, June 30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Zygmunt. 2003. La Vie en miettes. Expérience postmoderne et moralité. Paris: Hachette.

    Google Scholar 

  • Börzel, Tanja. 2002. States and Regions in the European Union: Institutional Adaptation in Germany and Spain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bustelo, Maria. 1998. Regional Public Policies for Gender Equality in Spain: Analysis and Evaluation. Paper presented at the conference of the European Consortium for Political Research, Warwick, 23–28 March.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bustelo, Maria, and Candice D. Ortbals. 2007. The Evolution of Spanish State Feminism: A Fragmented Landscape. In Changing State Feminism, ed. Joyce Ousthoorn and Johanna Kantola, 201–223. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Calvo, Kerman. 2007. Sacrifices that Pay: Polity Membership, Political Opportunities and the Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage in Spain. South European Society & Politics 12 (3): 295–314.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Spain: Building Reciprocal Relations between Lesbian and Gay Organizations and the State. In The Lesbian and Gay Movement and the State, ed. Manon Tremblay, David Paternotte, and Carol Johnson, 177–180. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaqués-Bonafont, Laura, and Anna Palau. 2012. From Prohibition to Permissiveness: A Two Wave Change on Morality Issues in Spain. In Morality Politics in Western Europe; Parties, Agendas and Policy Choices, ed. Isabelle Engeli, Christoffer Green-Pedersen, and Lars Thorup Larsen, 62–87. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Colomer, Jordi. 1998. La transición de la democracia: el modelo español. Barcelona: Anagrama.

    Google Scholar 

  • Commission des lois. 2013. Projet de loi ouvrant le mariage aux couples de personnes de même sexe, Amendements soumis à la commission, 13 janvier. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/pdf/amendements_commissions/cloi/0344-01.pdf

  • Crameri, Kathryn. 2015. Political Power and Civil Counterpower: The Complex Dynamics of the Catalan Independence Movement. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 21 (1): 104–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delphy, Christine. 2002. A War for Afghan Women. In September 11, 2011: Feminist Perspectives, ed. Susan Hawthorne and Bronwyn Winter, 302–315. Melbourne: Spinifex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delphy, Christine. 2007. A War for Afghan Women. In September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives, ed. Susan Hawthrone and Bronwyn Winter, 302–315. Melbourne: Spinifex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Descoutures, Virginie, Marie Digoix, Éric Fassin, and Wilfried Rault, eds. 2008. Mariages et homosexualités dans le monde. L’arrangement des normes familiales. Paris: Autrement.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisenstein, Zillah. 2007. Sexual Decoys: Gender, Race and War in Imperial Democracy. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Escario, Pilar, et al. 1996. Lo personal es politico. El movimiento feminista en la Transicion, Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales. Madrid: Instituto de la Mujer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fassin, Éric. 2008. L’Inversion de la question homosexuelle. Paris: Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fassin, Eric, and Judith Surkis. 2012. Sexual Boundaries, European Identities, and Transnational Migrations in Europe. Public Culture 22 (3): 5–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferry, Jean-Marc. 2014. Les Voies de la relance européenne. Lausanne: Fondation Jean-Monnet pour l’Europe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Forest, Maxime, and Silvia Lopez. 2009. QUING LARG Comparative Country Studies Spain.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraisse, Geneviève. 1995. Muse de la raison. Démocratie et exclusion des femmes en France. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010a. Sur l’incompatibilité supposée entre l’amour et le féminisme. In À côté du genre. Sexe et philosophie de l’égalité. Paris: Le bord de l’eau.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010b. Les Femmes et leur histoire. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, Nancy. 2009. Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History. New Left Review 56, March–April.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frotiée, Brigitte. 2006. L’égalité des sexes en Espagne comme enjeu politique dans le processus de démocratisation. Politique européenne 20: 75–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frotiée, Brigitte, and Maria Jesus Rodriguez Garcia. 2012. La prise en charge des questions d’égalité femmes-hommes en Espagne (1975–2012). Revue française des affaires sociales 2–3: 112–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gil, Juana. 1996. Las politicas de igualdad en Espana. Granada: Universidad de Granda.

    Google Scholar 

  • Godard, Thomas. 2014. Peillon dans le piège de la “théorie du genre”: une maladresse linguistique et politique. LePlus.NouvelObs.com, January 30. http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/1138212-peillon-dans-le-piege-de-la-theorie-du-genre-une-maladresse-linguistique-et-politique.html

  • Hajjat, Abdellali, and Marwan Mohammed, eds. 2014. Sociologie de l’islamophobie. Sociologie 5 (1): 120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaunait, Alexandre, Amélie Le Renard, and Élisabeth Marteu, eds. 2013. Nationalismes sexuels. Raisons politiques 49: 171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larumbe, Maria Angeles. 2001. El feminism en la Transiciόn Española. In Una immensa minoria influencia y feminismo en la transiciόn, 139–196. Segardiana: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lépinard, Éléonore. 2007. L’Égalité introuvable. La parité, les féministes et la République. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lopez, Silvia, Elin Peterson, and Raquel Platero. 2007. Issue Histories Spain: Series of Timelines of Policy Debates. Quality in Gender + Equality Policies – QUING Project, Vienna, Institute for Human Sciences. Accessed 15 April 2017. http://www.quing.eu/files/results/ih_spain.pdf

  • MAGEEQ. 2005. Framing Homosexual Rights in Spain: Findings of the MAGEEQ Project. Paper presented at the MAGEEQ Conference in Brussels.

    Google Scholar 

  • Margalit, Avishai. 2010. On Compromise and Rotten Compromises. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mc Bride, Dorothy E., and Amy Mazur, eds. 2012. The Politics of State Feminism: Innovation in Comparative Research. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montero, José Ramon, and Kerman Calvo. 2000. Religiosity and Party Choice in Spain: An Elusive Cleavage? In Religion and Mass Electoral Behavior in Europe, ed. David Broughton and Hans Martien ten Napel, 118–139. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreno, Luis, and Ana Arriba. 1999. Welfare and Decentralization in Spain. Florencia: EUI (European Forum, WP 99/8).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mossuz-Lavau, Janine. 2009. Guerre des sexes, stop! Paris: Flammarion.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, Chantal. 2014. By Way of a Postscript. Parallax 20 (2): 149–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paternotte, David. 2011. Revendiquer le « mariage gay ». Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. La juridification du droit comme matrice de l’action collective: la revendication du droit au mariage entre personnes du même sexe. Politique et Sociétés 31 (2): 93–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paternotte, David, and Kelly Kollman. 2013. Regulating Intimate Relationships in the European Polity: Same-sex Unions and Policy Convergence. Social Politics 20 (4): 510–533.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pélabay, Janie. 2011. Former le “bon citoyen” libéral. L’éducation morale et civique aux prises avec le pluralisme. Raisons politiques 44: 117–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pew Research Center. 2013. The Global Divide on Homosexuality and Greater Acceptance in More Secular and Affluent Countries, June 4. http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-homosexuality/

  • Platero Mendez, Raquel. 2006. Invisibiliza el matrimonio homosexual a las lesbianas? In Orientaciones, vol. 10, 103–120. Madrid: Fundacion Triangulo.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. The Limits of Equality. The Intersectionality of Gender and Sexuality in Spanish Policy Making. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning 1: 33–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. Intersecting Gender and Sexual Orientation: An Analysis of Sexuality and Citizenship in Gender Equality Policies in Spain. In Contesting Citizenship, ed. Birte Siim and Judith Squires. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puar, Jasbir K. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rochefort, Florence. 2014. ‘Mariage pour tous’: genre, religions et sécularisation. In Qu’est-ce-que le genre? ed. Laurie Laufer and Florence Rochefort, 213–230. Paris: Payot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosanvallon, Pierre. 2011. La Société des égaux. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1964 [1762]. Du contrat social. In Œuvres complètes, vol. vol. 3. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1996 [1762]. Émile, ou De l’éducation. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanders, Douglas. 1994. Constructing Lesbian and Gay Rights. Revue canadienne droit et société 9 (2): 99–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt, Sophie, Eva-Maria Euchner, and Caroline Preidel. 2013. Regulating Prostitution and Same-sex Marriage in Italy and Spain: The Interplay of Political and Societal veto Players in Two Catholic Societies. Journal of European Public Policy 20 (3): 425–441.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sénac, Réjane. 2016. The Contemporary Conversation about the French Connection ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’: Neoliberal Equality and ‘Non-brothers’. Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique XXI-1.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2017. Les non-frères au pays de l’égalité. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sénac-Slawinski, Réjane. 2009. Parity and the Sexual Order. In Women, Feminism, and Femininity in the 21st Century: American and French Perspectives, ed. Béatrice Mousli and Eve-Alice Roustang-Stoller, 133–154. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Storti, Martine. 2014. L’abandon des ABCD de l’égalité, symbole de l’abdication idéologique de la gauche. Le Monde, July 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tremblay, Manon. 2014. Secular Humanism vs. Social Conservatism: Analyzing Canadian House of Commons Debates on Same-Sex Mariage. Scholars World 2 (1): 7–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tremblay, Manon, David Paternotte, and Carol Johnson, eds. 2011. The Lesbian and Gay Movement and the State. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valiente, Celia. 1995. The Power of Persuasion: The Instituto de la Mujer in Spain. In Comparative State Feminism, ed. D. Stetson and Amy G. Mazur, 221–236. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waites, Matthew. 2009. Critique of ‘Sexual Orientation’ and ‘Gender Identity’ in Human Discourses: Global Queer Politics beyond the Yogyakarta Principles. Contemporary Politics 15 (1): 137–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winter, Bronwyn. 2014. ‘The Ties that Bind Us’: The Hidden Knots of Gay Marriage. Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 11 (1). ePress.lib.uts.edu.au

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po, CNRS - Sciences Po, PRESAGE, Paris, France

    Réjane Sénac

Authors
  1. Réjane Sénac
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. European Studies, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Bronwyn Winter

  2. Sciences Po - OFCE, Center for Political Research CEVIPOF, Paris, France

    Maxime Forest

  3. Sciences Po - CNRS, Center for Political Research CEVIPOF, Paris, France

    Réjane Sénac

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Sénac, R. (2018). Same-Sex Marriage in France and Spain: Comparing Resistance in a Centralized Secular Republic and the Dynamics of Change in a “Quasi-Federal” Constitutional Monarchy. In: Winter, B., Forest, M., Sénac, R. (eds) Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage. Global Queer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62764-9_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation