Press Release – No Right to Same-Sex “Marriage” in the Human Rights Convention

The organizer’s committee of the ECI “Mum Dad & Kids” hails today’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of Chapin and Charpentier v. France (Appl. Nr. 40183/07), in which it is clarified that under the European Human Rights Convention the term “marriage” has no other meaning than that of a union between a man and a woman.

The case concerned so-called same-sex “marriages” that were registered by the mayor of a French municipality in 2004 despite the fact that at that time (i.e., prior to the controversial Loi Taubira, which was adopted in 2013) the French legal order provided no legal basis for such “marriages”. As a matter of consequence, the false “marriage” had been declared void by the Tribunal of Bordeaux at the request of the public prosecutor’s office.

By their application to the ECtHR the two applicants claimed that the Tribunal’s decision to declare their “marriage” void violated their right to marry and found a family under Article 12, and their right to respect for their family life under Article 8, of the European Human Rights Convention. But with today’s judgment the ECtHR has confirmed that the term “marriage” in Article 12 has a clear and unambiguous meaning: a union between a man and a woman. This was so when the Convention was adopted in 1950, and it remains so today.

The President of the citizens’ committee “Mum Dad & Kids”, Edit Frivaldszky, said: “It is a great satisfaction to see that the Court confirms and corroborates the position that our ECI is promoting: marriage is something unique and special. One of the purposes of marriage is to provide a place where children can grow up happily, and it is in the child’s best interest to grow up in the love aund unity of his mother and father. The Human Rights Convention provides absolutely no legal base to pressure national legislators to re-define marriage. If in some quarters claims are made that same-sex ‘marriage’ is a human right, these claims are false, without foundation, and contrary to good faith”.

The Secretary General of the committee, Maria Hildingsson, added: “Article 12 of the Convention places the family into a direct context with marriage. It is therefore clear that today’s judgment has implications for the way in which the term ‘family’ is to be understood: it is based on the marriage between a man and a woman, and on descent.”

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