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    French government unveils draft gay marriage law

    * Government bill includes gay marriage and adoption

    * Assisted procreation left out, but MPs could insist

    * Religious leaders, conservatives campaign against change

    PARIS, Nov 7 (Reuters) - France's Socialist government

    approved a draft law on Wednesday to allow same-sex marriage,

    despite coming under fierce attack from religious leaders and

    conservative politicians.

    The proposed law, presented as the first major social reform

    of Francois Hollande's presidency, would grant gay couples the

    right to adopt children but not to use assisted procreation

    methods such as artificial insemination.

    Parliament is due to vote on the proposals by mid-2013.

    The draft was a compromise, leaving out the complex issue of

    assisted procreation to ease its way through parliament. But

    left-wing deputies have vowed to amend the text to include it.

    Leaders of all major faiths and some conservative deputies

    have vigorously denounced the plan and lay Catholic groups have

    announced street demonstrations against it next week.

    "This is an important step towards equality of rights,"

    Family Minister Dominique Bertinotti told reporters after the

    cabinet meeting adopted the draft to allow "marriage for all,"

    as its supporters describe the reform.

    A government spokeswoman said Hollande told the cabinet the

    reform would be "progress not only for a few, but for the whole

    society," a clear response to a charge by Paris Cardinal Andre

    Vingt-Trois that it was "a fraud" favouring a tiny minority.

    CHURCH AND CONSERVATIVES OPPOSED

    The head of France's Roman Catholic Church told his fellow

    bishops in the pilgrimage town of Lourdes last Saturday that

    same-sex marriage would upset the equilibrium of French society

    and harm children growing up without a father and a mother.

    Jean-Francois Cope, secretary general of the conservative

    UMP party, said the government's plan would "play havoc" with

    the Civil Code, which would have to be re-worded to remove

    gender references from passages dealing with family issues.

    Their criticism has dominated the public debate in recent

    weeks, prompting a slight dip in voter support to around 60

    percent for gay marriage and around 50 percent for gay adoption.

    If the law is passed, France, a traditionally Catholic

    society where churchgoers are now a minority single-digit

    percentage of the population, would become the 12th country in

    the world to allow same-sex marriage.

    France legalised gender-neutral civil unions in 1999 and

    almost as many are contracted now as traditional marriages. But

    only 4 percent of those are among same-sex couples.

    In recent weeks the Catholic Church and France's Jewish,

    Muslim, Orthodox Christian and Buddhist religious minorities

    have been especially severe in criticising the possible options

    of gay adoption and assisted procreation.

    In separate statements they have avoided using religious

    arguments and based their criticism on what they said were the

    social, psychological and legal problems.

    MORE TIME FOR DEBATE

    The government originally underestimated opposition to the

    reform but decided to extend the time for parliamentary hearings

    in January when critics accused it of trying to stifle debate.

    The pro-gay rights group Inter-LGBT was due to hold a rally

    outside the National Assembly on Wednesday evening to demand

    that assisted procreation, which is currently only available to

    married heterosexual couples, be included in the draft law.

    Some French lesbians who desire children now travel to

    neighbouring Belgium for artificial insemination.

    Surrogate motherhood is illegal in France and the draft law

    would not change that, meaning that gay men could not engage a

    surrogate mother abroad and have the child recognised as their

    own on return to France.

    Adoption rights would help gay couples who already have

    children, because the partner with no biological link to the

    child could legally become a parent. Estimates put the number of

    such cases at already between 40,000 and 200,000.

    But it is unlikely many gay couples will be able to adopt

    children un-related to them because there is a shortage of

    children for heterosexual couples already seeking to adopt.

    >

    (Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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