Protestant Mayor Charged for not Willing to Bless Homosexual Couples

Case information
Incident date
Country
France
Place
Sotteville-sous-le-Val
Categories
  • Social Hostility / Intolerance
Attack Against
  • Morals
Perpetrator / Motive Indicators
  • Political
  • Radical Left
Religious Freedom / Discrimination
  • Lawsuit
  • Freedom of Conscience
  • Freedom of Expression
  • Negative Stereotyping
Place of Incident
  • Government Building
Bias Indicators
  • Racial/Ethnic/Gender/Cultural Differences
  • Victim/Witness Perception
Reported to Police
  • Unknown
Response of Local Authorities
  • Unknown
Symbolic image; not a photograph of the reported incident.Image credit: Alexandre Lallemand on Unsplash

Franck Meyer, evangelical mayor of a small town in Normandy, Sotteville-sous-le-Val, has now been accused by two LGBT associations. The evangelical mayor, president of the Protestant Committee for Human Dignity (CPDH), declared that he would not bless a marriage "between two men or two women" out of fidelity to his religious convictions. He called for a "conscience clause", as exists in the case of infant baptism or for doctors who oppose abortion, but which does not apply to elected representatives. For the lawyer of the two LGBT associations, Franck Meyer's remarks constitute "discrimination committed by a person with public authority in the course of his functions". Meyer vehemently contradicted this in a press release on 17 December: "I therefore formally deny the accusations of discrimination made against me and consider that they amount to a defamatory denunciation. "

Sources