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Just as American gay marriage advocates enjoyed the single biggest night for gay rights in electoral historyscoring milestone victories in ballot initiatives and reelecting a pro-gay marriage president in Barack ObamaFrance is hotly debating its own brand new Marriage for All plan. In Paris on Wednesday, the French cabinet approved a draft bill to allow homosexual couples to marry and adopt children as early as 2013. The controversial bill marks President Franois Hollandes first major societal reform. Progress not just for a few but for all of society, he said Wednesday.

For years, a majority of French people surveyed have expressed support for gay marriage, and the reform makes good on an explicit Hollande campaign promise, duly inscribed in a platform that saw him elected only six months ago. But that hasnt stopped the fight in France from turning ugly.

In recent weeks, religious leaders have joined members of the political opposition in virulent condemnation of Hollandes gay marriage pitch. Rivals have smelled blood, as the president has struggled with critiques of his leadership from allies and foes alike. Detractors have charged that solving the economic crisis should top the presidents to-do list, not planning gay weddings. With unemployment high and rising, Hollandes grim approval ratings have plummeted as low as the mid-30 percent range.

In the pilgrimage town of Lourdes last weekend, Archbishop of Paris Andr Vingt-Trois called the initiative a trick, as it does away, he argued, with the recognition of sexual difference. The Catholic cardinal said the initiative would shake the foundations of our society, earning a hail of insults from gay marriage supporters. (Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly that stirred controversy in September with lewd caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, was typically crudest, depicting the Christian trinity in a graphic mnage–trois cartoon on its cover this week.)

France is historically Catholic, with 64 percent identifying as such in a 2009 poll. But only 4.5 percent identify as practicing Catholicsfewer, as it happens, than the French population identifying as gay or bisexual (6.5 percent). Still, in a nation fervently attached to the separation of church and state, the archbishops unusually intense incursion was enough to dominate headlines.

Some opposition politicians, including far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, have called for a referendum to decide the matter. Mayors hostile to the prospect of marrying two men or two women in town halls across the country have launched a petition asking for exceptions of conscience. Last month, Franois Lebel, the mayor of the Paris district that includes the Champs Elyses and the Elyse Palace, where he married former President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni in 2008, controversially wrote against Marriage for All in a municipal newspaper, Why then would the legal age for marriage be maintained? And why forbid marriage between close relations, pedophilia, or incest which are all still common currency in the world.

Two French lesbian policewomen, Raphaelle and her companion Fabienne pose with one of their three children, on Oct. 24, 2012, near Lyon, in eastern France. (Jeff Pachoud, AFP / Getty Images)

Heavyweights in Lebels Union for a Popular Movement (UMP in French), the party that led France for 10 years before Sarkozy lost his bid for a second term in May, have variously asked that the bill be pulled or, like former Prime Minister Franois Fillon, have promised to repeal it at their next opportunity. One key former Sarkozy cabinet minister responded in the affirmative when she was asked whether gay couples who will have married legally by then could be de-married when her party returns to power.

The population isnt renewing itself, what sense does this make? We want a country of gays? Well, then, in 10 years therell be no one left, so its stupid, UMP Senator Serge Dassault told a France Culture radio reporter. At 87, Dassaults stance might not be surprising demographically, but his influence isnt negligible; the patriarch of the Dassault family is 93rd on Forbess global billionaires list and heads a vast fortune. He owns Le Figaro, Frances top right-of-center daily newspaper, and Dassault Aviation, which makes Frances fighter jets. In his radio remarks, Dassault blamed homosexuality for the total decadence of Greece and concluded it posed an enormous danger to the entirety of our nation. (It is presumed he was referring to ancient Greece. The decadence of contemporary Greece, overwhelmed by debt, isnt gay peoples fault, apparently.)

As a matter of fact, France already allows a form of civil union, known as the PACS or civil solidarity pact. It passed despite similar bluster in 1999, during Frances last stretch of Socialist rule. But PACS unions dont confer the same rights or responsibilities as marriage doesfor instance, on inheritance, on the right to adopt a partners child or even surnamehence the demand for the new draft bill.

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France's Gay Marriage Fight