The Human Rights Convention contains no “Right to same-sex marriage”

AgendaEurope: In today’s judgment in the case of  Chapin and Charpentier v. France (Appl. Nr. 40183/07), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has confirmed earlier rulings according which under the European Human Rights Convention the term “marriage” has no other meaning than that of a union between a man and a woman.

In May 2004 the applicants had submitted a marriage application to the civil registry department of Bègles municipal council. The municipal civil registrar published the banns of marriage. The public prosecutor at the Bordeaux tribunal de grande instance served notice of his objection to the marriage on the Bègles municipal civil registrar and on Mr Chapin and Mr Charpentier. Despite the objection, and in full awareness that he was violating the law, the mayor of Bègles performed the marriage ceremony and made an entry to that effect in the register of births, marriages and deaths. The competent lawcourts subsequently declared this “marriage” to be null and void. Having been dismissed at every stage of the French judicial system, the plaintiffs appealed to the ECtHR, contending “that they had been discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation”.  More