PARIS -- French President Francois Hollande has signed into law a bill allowing same-sex marriage, making France the 14th country to legalize gay weddings.

France's official journal announced on Saturday the bill had become law after the Constitutional Council gave it the go-ahead on Friday.

The bill, a campaign pledge by the Socialist president, has been for months hotly contested by many conservatives in France, where allowing gay marriage is one of the biggest social reforms since abolition of the death penalty in 1981.

Opponents have staged huge and often violent demonstrations against the bill and have called yet another protest on May 26. The leader of opposition to gay marriage, a political activist and humorist who goes under the name of Frigide Barjot, has said the protest would draw millions into the streets.

Montpellier mayor Helene Mandroux, who is due to celebrate France's first gay marriage in the southern city on May 29, said the law marked a major social advance.

"Love has won out over hate," she said, while voicing concerns the first gay wedding could attract violent protests.

France, a predominantly Catholic country, follows 13 others including Canada, Denmark, Sweden and most recently Uruguay and New Zealand in allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed. In the United States, Washington D.C. and 12 states have legalized same-sex marriage.

Unlike former president Francois Mitterrand's abolition of the death penalty, which most French people opposed at the time, polls showed more than half the country backed gay marriage.

Nonetheless, with Hollande's popularity ratings at record lows a year into office, the law has proved costly for the president with critics saying it has distracted his attention from reviving the recession-hit economy.

After lawmakers adopted the bill in late April, opponents had sought to scupper it with a last-ditch appeal to the Constitutional Council.

Related stories:

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• Protesters in France: Gay marriage would hurt children

Isaac Kasamani / AFP - Getty Images, file

British theater producer David Cecil waves from a court cell in Kampala on Sept. 13, 2012 after being arrested for staging a play about a gay man.

KAMPALA -- Uganda has deported a British theater producer charged with staging a play about homosexuality, the British High Commission said on Tuesday.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and further legislation on the issue, awaiting debate in parliament, has drawn criticism from donors including the United States.

Producer David Cecil, 35, was deported from the east African country late on Monday aboard a KLM flight, and arrived in the UK on Tuesday morning, British High Commission spokesperson Chris Ward said.

A court threw out a case against Cecil last month. He had been charged with disobeying a public official last September after ignoring orders to cancel a theatre production with a gay leading character.

Cecil, who denied being a gay rights activist, could have faced two to four years in jail in the religiously conservative country if convicted.

"We are extremely disappointed and obviously concerned that David was being deported without being given an opportunity to challenge the deportation order which would be through the Ugandan courts," Ward told Reuters.

He said he had not arranged a meeting with Ugandan officials yet "but we fully intend to do so," adding, "It's obviously key ... (for) the UK government to know that due process is being followed."

Immigration officials were not available for comment after the deportation, but have told Reuters there was a direct ministerial order to deport Cecil. A spokesperson said the ministry would issue a statement later.

Uganda's immigration act enables the deportation of any foreigner declared by the minister of internal affairs to be an "undesirable immigrant".

Fridah Mutesi, one of Cecil's lawyers and a gay rights activist, said they still intended to challenge the validity of the deportation order by filing a case to the high court.

Cecil's partner, Florence Kebirungi, said she last heard from him at about 6pm (0300 GMT) on Monday night.

"He called me briefly when he was at the airport to say 'Can you call the lawyers?' and then before I could reply, he hung up," she said.

Uganda's latest legislative proposals include a charge of "promotion of homosexuality" which could mean up to seven years in prison for activists, artists, lawyers and even health workers convicted of "funding and sponsoring ... homosexuality and related activities."

Uganda's Minister of Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo has already been enforcing that clause in recent months to clamp down on gay rights activism, and had promised a "fresh investigation" into Cecil after he was cleared last month.

A previous bill, denounced as "odious" by U.S. President Barack Obama, had proposed the death penalty for gays.

KAMPALA — Ugandan authorities said on Monday they plan to deport a British theater producer who was charged last year with staging a play about homosexuality.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and David Cecil, 35, was charged with disobeying a public official last September after ignoring official orders to cancel a theater production with a gay leading character.

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:39 AM EST

Women’s rights groups are claiming victory in their efforts to get the government of Ecuador to shut down underground clinics that they say used torture techniques to try to “cure” lesbians.

Fundacion Causana, Taller de Comunicacion Mujer and Artikulacion Esporadika, a coalition of Ecuadorian women’s rights activists, started an online campaign on Change.org after working with women who had escaped what they call “torture clinics.” Many of the women cited physical and psychological abuse, including verbal threats, shackling, days without food or water, sexual abuse, and physical torture in efforts to make them “straight.”

“After years of campaigning about the practice of torture rehab clinics that claim to cure homosexuality, the Ecuadorian government has committed to deconstructing the belief that homosexuality is a sickness,” Fundacion Causana representative Karen Barba said in a press release issued by Change.org on Tuesday. “Using Change.org, we were able to achieve victory in closing down ex-gay torture clinics.”

The online petition to close the clinics drew more than 100,000 signatures from across the world.

Earlier this week, President Rafael Correa also appointed Carina Vance, a lesbian and a gay-rights activist, as the new health minister. Vance is former executive director of Fundacion Causana.

Vance succeeds Minister of Health Dr. David Chirriboga, who before stepping down last week announced the government would investigate and close all such clinics in the country, launch a national advertising and awareness campaign against homophobia, and develop a crisis hotline for victims, according to Change.org.

“The Ministry of Public Health, the governing body of Ecuador’s health sector, is committed to strengthening the measures and institutions that contribute to the eradication of abusive practices such as the supposed treatment of homosexuality,” Chirriboga was quoted as saying. “The Ecuadorian government rejects such practices as criminal and in direct conflict with the individual freedoms granted to all our citizens.”

Thirty so-called reparative therapy clinics were shut down by Correa's government in September after pressure from activists, including Vance, who will continue the campaign against remaining clinics as health minister.

A story on cnn.com on Thursday highlighted stories of alleged abuse by women who visited the clinics. The woman told CNN that her family contacted a center that promised to “cure” her of her homosexuality when she was 23. 

The woman, now 28, said she was kept in handcuffs for more than three months in a “therapeutic” center called Puente a la Vida, or Bridge of Life. Concha says she endured all kinds of demeaning and abusive treatment during the 18 months she was held there, according to CNN.

The clinic has since been shut down. CNN said efforts to reach its former director for a comment were unsuccessful.

Under Vance's leadership as health minister, three raids have already taken place in the Quito area, and dozens of women have been rescued, CNN reported.

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