THE blogger Tiberge at Galliawatch reports that France 2 News, a major French television network, did not broadcast its news program on Sunday, the night of “La Manif Pour Tous,” or “The Rally for Everyone,” a demonstration against homosexual marriage rights believed to have drawn as many as one million supporters. It is unclear why the news program was not aired. Was it a deliberate attempt to suppress the remarkable news of the rally? If so, it is a shocking instance of the manipulative power of the press.

One aspect of the rally worth noting was the banners that various regional contingents carried with them, a typically French display of affiliation and local identity. What’s so important about these proud displays of communal identity is that they symbolize something that the resistance to homosexual marriage is defending: not just marriage, but human connection and tradition. Tiberge writes:

Below the department of le Vaucluse proudly marches. Like the Olympic Games where every nation parades, on Sunday every department and region, every special association and organization, carried its banners. Unlike the Olympics, however, this was inherently Christian, religious, patriotic, traditionalist and moral.

In his book Equality by Default: An Essay on Modernity as Confinement, the French writer Philippe Bénéton describes the principle of radical equality — which he calls “equality by default” — that is the animating idea of contemporary life. Equality by default is a pulverizing force. It flattens and levels. It creates a gray, lifeless homogeneity where natural distinctions once prevailed and preserved individuality. Equality by default is different from substantial equality, which consists of a primary and fundamental supernatural equality of human beings, because it “excludes all vital inequality.” It renders human beings autonomous and indifferent to each other. In the end, radical equality weakens love and loyalty. It’s the very foundation of the heartless anonymity that is so characteristic of the modern world. Bénéton writes:

Default man is liberated from every norm and every model: he no longer forms part of an order that transcends him. He enjoys a sovereign independence. He is a stranger in the universe.

Homosexual “marriage” is an idea founded on equality by default. It is an enemy of the very traditions these proud banners represent. Tradition cannot survive without the basic unit of society: Maman, Papa et enfants.

— Comments —

Lydia Sherman writes:

Regarding the news blackout, why do we even need “the press” anymore? I was talking to a friend on Skype in Australia and she told me everything about her area including the weather, the state of the economy, job availability, and the moral condition of the community. She showed me a street where she lived and shared her opinion about many things. Years ago a reporter for a major news company would have done little more than the same thing. I also spoke on Skype with a friend in Bristol, England. She and her husband talked at length about the political atmosphere and their own opinions. She shared with me the costs of household items,. her religious beliefs, her household routine, and her interests. She showed on camera the items of furniture her husband had built for her in the house.

Regarding the political events in France: almost everyone has a digital camera today that takes videos, and everyone has access to YouTube where they can have their own channels. They can broadcast their own stories on their blogs, with their own video footage. The press is lost in the crowd of real reporters like these alert people. More power to these real reporters, Laura. Eventually I hope the free market system will put the major news networks at the bottom of the list. They’ve controlled this country far too long, and their time is up; their party is over.

Laura writes:

You are right. The major news networks are superfluous and undeserving of their immense power. Unfortunately, many people are habituated to television news.

Jesse Powell writes:

This issue of what is talked about in the media and in mainstream culture is very important. I know in my personal history I felt very isolated in my views for a long time. I first turned against feminism in 1995 and at the time I felt like I was the only person in the world against feminism. I was an avid follower of the news and I was very perceptive of any cultural messages that would tend to agree with me, that would indicate that there were any like minded people out there somewhere. Around this time I remember a woman being interviewed on a television news show who was a part of Promise Keepers and she actually said that wives should submit to their husbands. I was amazed to hear anyone say such a thing; I couldn’t believe it, the idea was completely foreign to me. Years and years went by and occasionally, very occasionally, something from mainstream news or entertainment would say something strongly opposed to feminism and every time I made a mental note of it and drew some encouragement from it but such episodes were very rare, say once every two or three years.

Even after I had entered into the world of the Internet and looked specifically for anti-feminist fellow travelers I at first thought that the men’s rights world was the only game in town. It took maybe two years for me to realize that there was a significant anti-feminist strain in Christianity and that the Christian anti-feminist movement was in fact bigger than the men’s rights world in the grand scheme of things. It is only very recently, about a year ago, that I realized the major family achievements of the Ultra-Orthodox Jews. I discovered the family success of the Ultra-Orthodox Jews by looking at family indicators by Census Tract and noticing extreme outliers in positive family indicators in New York State and New Jersey that I later learned were because of the Ultra-Orthodox population there; I didn’t discover this information from any news stories.

Now I know a lot about religious revival that is beneficial to society that is taking place in many different religious contexts simultaneously with a few positive things happening in the secular and political spheres as well but it took me years of research based on my own personal interest to dig up the facts and put the information together to tell a broader story that made sense.

If I was simply living an ordinary day to day life just taking in the mainstream media and popular entertainment I would still probably to this day think that I was the only anti-feminist in the world and I would still be feeling totally isolated in my anti-feminist beliefs.

Now I know, I am not alone!