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More than 100,000 protest French marriage law

France’s first legal gay wedding slated to take place on Wednesday

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Paris, anti-gay, gay marriage, Washington Blade, France

An anti-gay marriage rally in Paris in January drew more than 350,000 people. (Photo courtesy of Xavier Héraud/Yagg.com)

An anti-gay marriage rally in Paris in January drew more than 350,000 people. (Photo courtesy of Xavier Héraud/Yagg.com)

More than 100,000 people marched through the streets of Paris on Sunday in opposition to France’s new same-sex marriage law.

Police said an estimated 150,000 same-sex marriage opponents took part in the protest in the French capital. La Manif Pour Tous, the group that led the campaign against the same-sex marriage law, said in a press release the march drew one million people.

French television reported authorities arrested 231 people who clashed with police at the end of the march.

“Despite all of the government’s attempts to intimidate, this protest will go down in history as an immense success,” La Manif Pour Tous said. “It was the ‘great shock of hope’ that France needs.”

President François Hollande on May 18 signed his country’s same-sex marriage bill into law after the French Constitutional Council rejected a challenge to it. The measure received final approval in the French National Assembly last month amid growing concerns the rhetoric against it had sparked a spate of anti-gay attacks across the country.

Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau of Montpellier are expected to become the first gay couple to tie the knot in France on Wednesday.

“Loving and committed gay and lesbian couples should be able to get married no matter who they are or where they live,” Andre Banks, executive director of All Out, a group that rallied support for the French same-sex marriage law. “We are so happy that France has made the world a freer and more beautiful place for gays and lesbians.”

Neighboring Belgium and Spain are among countries in which gays and lesbians can legally marry.

Gay couples in Uruguay and New Zealand will be able to tie the knot in August once their country’s same-sex marriage laws take effect.

Brazil’s National Council of Justice on May 14 ruled registrars cannot deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The Colombian Senate last month overwhelmingly rejected a same-sex marriage bill. Gays and lesbians will be able to legally register their relationships in the South American country on June 20 if lawmakers fail to act upon a 2011 ruling from the nation’s highest court that mandated them to pass legislation within two years that extends the same benefits heterosexuals receive through marriage to same-sex couples.

The British House of Lords next month is slated to debate a measure that would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in England and Wales.

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Hungary

Hungarian authorities lift Budapest Pride ban

Country’s new government took office last month

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Budapest Pride participants march over the Erzsebet Bridge in Budapest, Hungary, on June 28, 2025, despite an official ban. The country's new government will allow this year's Budapest Pride march to take place without restrictions. (Courtesy photo)

Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the annual Budapest Pride march to take place.

“The Budapest Metropolitan Police has approved the 2026 Budapest Pride Parade and also has issued restrictive orders in relation to three counter-demonstrations,” a Budapest Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Politico.

Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.

Hungarian lawmakers last year passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.

More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in last year’s Budapest Pride parade. The event became one of the largest protests against then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government since he took office in 2010.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12. The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021.

The EU on May 29 announced it will release more than €16 billion ($18.59 billion) in funds to Hungary that it withheld while Orbán was in office.

The Budapest Pride march will take place on June 27.

“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.

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Colombia

Claudia López comes up short in Colombian presidential election

Former Bogotá mayor would have been country’s first lesbian head of government

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Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López speaks at the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute's International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C. on Dec. 7, 2024. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López on Sunday finished fifth in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election.

López, a centrist who ran as an independent, received 225,517 votes. This figure is .95 percent of the total votes cast.

López was the Colombian capital’s mayor from 2020-2023. She was a member of the Colombian Senate from 2014-2018. López, whose wife is outgoing Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano, would have become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she would have won the election.

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored López in D.C. in 2024.

“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she told the Washington Blade during an interview. She hadn’t yet declared her candidacy, and did not specifically discuss her plans to run.

Runoff to take place June 21

Abrelardo de la Espriella, a far-right lawyer who has praised U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, on Sunday finished first with 43.74 percent of the vote. Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s Historic Pact party, came in second with 40.9 percent of the vote.

Neither men received a majority of votes. A runoff between them will take place on June 21.

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Ghana

Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill

Measure that would criminalize allyship awaits president’s signature

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Ghanaian flag (Public domain photo from Pixabay)

Ghanaian lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would, among other things, criminalize LGBTQ allyship.

Reuters reported MPs approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, in a voice vote after parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee backed it.

MPs in 2024 approved a similar bill, but it faced legal challenges and then-President Nana Akufo-Addo didn’t sign it. Lawmakers last year reintroduced the measure after President John Dramani Mahama took office.

The bill awaits his signature.

Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, in a series of social media posts notes MPs passed the bill days before the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty will take place in Accra, the country’s capital.

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