Kudos to the French government for passing gay marriage, but what about France? These kinds of mass protests against marriage equality, and this kind of organized homophobia you expect in more benighted places such as these United States. Much of the opposition has been ascribed to a conservative French Catholic culture. This muddles up a lot of core pictures, concepts and beliefs. What happened to laïcité? I thought I understood something about the French Enlightenment and contemporary Europe, but I guess I didn’t.