Riots in France after legalization of gay marriage, Columbia mulls vote

                 
Parisians reacted on Wednesday to the passing of a law in France that legalized gay marriage.          

The issue has not been without controversy.           

The measure was passed after a national debate that exposed deep conservatism in the nation's heartland and triggered huge demonstrations that tapped into intense discontent with the Socialist government.          

Within hours of the announcement on Tuesday that gay marriage had been legalized, clashes broke out between protesters and riot police.         

It was an issue that galvanized the country's faltering right, which had been decimated by infighting and their election loss to President Francois Hollande.          

France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage nationwide, and the most populous.                 

The measure passed easily in the Socialist-majority Assembly, 331-225, just after the president of the legislative body expelled a disruptive protester in pink, the color adopted by French opponents of gay marriage.           

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told lawmakers that the first weddings could be as soon as June.         

In recent weeks, violent attacks against gay couples have spiked and some legislators have received threats - including Claude Bartelone, the Assembly president, who got a gunpowder-filled envelope on Monday.             

When Hollande promised to legalize gay marriage, it was seen as relatively uncontroversial.           

The issue has become a touchstone, however, as his popularity has sunk to unprecedented lows, largely over France's ailing economy.             

Simultaneously, the Colombian Congress postponed a vote on a controversial law to legalize gay marriage for the second time on Tuesday.                 

Congress was due to vote on the second debate of the law on Monday, but the vote will now take place on Wednesday.            

Thousands of supporters and opponents of gay marriage gathered outside Congress on Tuesday to express their views on the subject.              

Pro-gay marriage demonstrators waved rainbow-colored flags and held up banners professing their support for the law.                  

Meanwhile, opponents of gay marriage held up religious banners and spoke of the threat which they claim the bill poses to family life in Colombia.         

Congress is due hold four debates on the law.       

The law will go forward if passed by a simple majority which would require 52 of the 102 senators to vote for it.                    

If the law is defeated it can still be brought before Congress once more, according to Colombian law.                  

Since 2007 in Colombia, same-sex couples have been able to inherit and also benefit from their partners' healthcare and pension schemes.            


AP/LBCI