• Clashes, riot police, at French anti-gay marriage protest

    Thomas Samson / AFP - Getty Images

    Demonstrators sing around a fire during a protest on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on March 24, 2013 against France's gay marriage law in an attempt to block legislation that will allow homosexual couples to marry and adopt children.

    By Oleg Cetinic, The Associated Press

    PARIS — Paris riot police fought back crowds who pushed their way onto Paris' landmark Champs-Elysees avenue as part of a huge protest against a draft law allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.

    Hundreds of thousands of people — conservative activists, children, retirees, priests — converged on the capital Sunday in a last-ditch bid to stop the bill, many bused in from the French provinces.

    The lower house of France's parliament approved the "marriage for everyone" bill last month with a large majority, and it's facing a vote in the Senate next month. Both houses are dominated by French President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party and its allies.

    Sustained protests led by opposition conservatives in this traditionally Catholic country have eroded support for the draft law in recent months, and organizers hope Sunday's march will weigh on the Senate debate.


    The first few hours of the protest were peaceful. But as it was meant to be winding down, about 100 youths tried to push past police barricades onto the Champs-Elysees, the avenue that cuts through central Paris and draws throngs of tourists daily. In an indication of the sensitivity of the issue, protesters had been barred from marching on the Champs.

    Police officers wrangled with the youths and then fired tear gas to force them back. Gaining momentum, more and more protesters took side streets to reach the avenue, blocking a key intersection on the route to the president's Elysee Palace.

    Police fired more tear gas but were unable to block the crowds from spilling onto the avenue.

    "Hollande, Resignation!" the protestors chanted, before breaking into the French anthem, "La Marseillaise."

    The demonstrations have become outlets for anger and disappointment in Hollande's presidency.

    An official with the Paris police headquarters said two people were arrested and no injuries were reported. The police official was not authorized to be publicly named in accordance with police policy.

    The official estimated that 300,000 people took part in Sunday's march, slightly less than a similar march in January. Organizers estimated more than 1.2 million people took part in Sunday's march, more than in the January protest.

    Polls indicate a shrinking majority of French voters back gay marriage, which is legal in about a dozen mostly European nations and some U.S. states. But polls show French voters are less enthusiastic about adoption by same-sex couples.

    Frigide Barjot, the stage name of an activist who has led protests against the bill, insisted the anti-gay marriage movement wasn't a lost cause. "It's the second round, sir. It's not the last battle." 

    Associated Press writer Angela Charlton and photographer Michel Euler in Paris contributed to this report.

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Pope Francis spoke of being 'dazzled' by girl, possible change of celibacy rule

    The newly installed pope admitted in a book, published last year, that he had been "dazzled" by a young woman while studying to be a priest and calls celibacy "a matter of discipline, not faith," saying "it can change." NBC's Jim Maceda reports.

    By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Pope Francis suggested in an interview last year that the Catholic Church's rule that priests be celibate "can change" and admitted he was tempted by a woman as a young seminarian.

    He said that the married clergy of the Eastern churches are "very good priests" and those pushing for the same in Roman Catholicism do so "with a certain pragmatism."

    For now, though, "the discipline of celibacy stands firm," he said, adding that priests should quit if they can't abstain from sex or if they get a woman pregnant.

    The former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's comments -- published in the Spanish-language book “On the Heavens and the Earth” and translated by the Catholic news website Aleteia -- were made when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.

    Father Thomas Reese, a Vatican analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, said he was surprised by the remarks because "the last few popes have been pretty clear they were not open to changing it or having a discussion about it."

    While Bergoglio certainly wasn't advocating for a rule change, "it looks like he may be willing to talk about it," Reese said.

    The future pope began the conversation with a personal anecdote from his years as a seminarian.

    "I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle's wedding," he said, according to Aleteia. "I was surprised by her beauty, her intellectual brilliance ... and, well, I was bowled over for quite a while.

    "I kept thinking and thinking about her. When I returned to the seminary after the wedding, I could not pray for over a week because when I tried to do so, the girl appeared in my head. I had to rethink what I was doing."


    He said he had to choose between the girl and the priesthood, and though he picked the latter, he knows not everyone would.

    "When something like this happens to a seminarian, I help him go in peace to be a good Christian and not a bad priest," Bergoglio said.

    "In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Catholic Churches. In those Churches, the priests can be married, but the bishops have to be celibate. They are very good priests," he added.

    "In Western Catholicism, some organizations are pushing for more discussion about the issue. For now, the discipline of celibacy stands firm. Some say, with a certain pragmatism, that we are losing manpower. If, hypothetically, Western Catholicism were to review the issue of celibacy, I think it would do so for cultural reasons (as in the East), not so much as a universal option."

    He said that "for the moment" he was in favor of maintaining the celibacy rule "because we have ten centuries of good experiences rather than failures."

    But, he added, "It is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change."

    In the meantime, though, he said celibacy should not be treated with a wink and a nod. Any priest who strays and becomes a father "has to leave the ministry," he said.

    "Now, if a priest tells me he got excited and that he had a fall, I help him to get on track again. There are priests who get on track again and others who do not," he said.

    "The double life is no good for us. I don't like it because it means building on falsehood. Sometimes I say: 'If you can not overcome it, make your decision.'"

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  • 'Status quo' leader: Same-sex marriage, abortion unlikely under Pope Francis

    Slideshow: Pope Francis: His life before the papacy

    Marcos Brindicci / Reuters

    Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected to lead the Catholic Church following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. 

    Launch slideshow

    By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Known as a compassionate Argentine archbishop who eschewed the trappings of his role to live amid his flock and who focused on the poor, Pope Francis will likely keep to Catholic teachings that reject abortion and same-sex marriage, experts said Wednesday.

    Francis washed the feet of 12 AIDS victims living at a hospice in 2001, an action filled with symbolism in the Roman Catholic Church since it was reminiscent of Holy Thursday and the washing of the apostles’ feet by Jesus.

    But in 2010, while Argentina was debating same-sex marriage legislation, he was quoted as calling the bill that ultimately passed “a plan to destroy God’s plan,” and said it was a “move by the father of lies to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

    He has also said gays and lesbians should not be allowed to adopt, according to Bernard Schlaeger of the Pacific School of Religion.

    “The pope will be Catholic,” Professor Christopher J. Ruddy, an expert in church theology at the Catholic University of America, said of how he expected Francis to respond to some of the controversial social issues. “He speaks and he teaches what the Catholic church teaches on these issues.”

    Nonetheless, gay and lesbian advocacy groups called on Francis to embrace LGBT people and their families.

    "For decades the Catholic hierarchy has been in need of desperate reform. In his life, Jesus condemned gays zero times. In Pope Benedict's short time in the papacy, he made a priority of condemning gay people routinely,” the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said in a statement.

    “This, in spite of the fact, that the Catholic hierarchy had been in collusion to cover up the widespread abuse of children within its care. We hope this pope will trade in his red shoes for a pair of sandals and spend a lot less time condemning and a lot more time foot-washing," the GLAAD statement continued.

    NBC News Vatican analyst and papal biographer George Weigel says Cardinal Bergoglio was the right choice, a man whose simplicity, austerity and gentleness can put the church on the road to a new future. Not a "maintenance guy" that merely oversees the status quo, Cardinal Bergoglio is expected to teach the Church how to be missionary again.

    Michael D’Antonio, author of the upcoming book “Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal,” thought there may be some opening for Francis to revisit the issues of contraception and mandatory celibacy for ordained priests, but he too felt that the new Catholic leader was not going to “change course in a substantial way” on the social issues that have at times put the religion in an uncomfortable spotlight.

    “The name that he chose signals to people the most earthy, the most populist kind of Catholicism, but whether that’s going to translate into greater respect for the voice of the average Catholic has yet to be seen and I think that the symbolism may be good but I really don’t expect real change,” he said.

    “We’ve been through decades and decades of scandal and crisis, and this is a man who has been at the highest level of the church through much of it, and he has never said or done anything that indicates that he’ll take a different approach,” he added.

    Decline in morale
    Meanwhile, the church's teachings on contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage, and its refusal to allow women to be ordained as priests, are blamed by some for the decline in morale among Catholics.

    Forty-six percent of U.S. Catholics surveyed think the new pope should “move in new directions,” while 51 percent say he should “maintain traditional positions,” according to a Pew Research Center Poll conducted last month.

    Media reports after Francis was named pope talked about him riding the bus with his compatriots, rather than using the chauffeured ride he had as part of his post. He also gave up his stately residence for a simple apartment, where he cooked his own meals.

    Francis was known to be a pastor close to the people, who is traditional on matters of faith and morality, “keeping the status quo on moral issues,” said Schlaeger, associate professor of cultural and historical studies at the Pacific School. He said he didn’t expect any major moves from Francis on the social issues, though his being from Latin America and the first Jesuit priest was a “sea change” that could lead him to surprise people.

    “They think they know who they have in that he’s not going to make radical change — he could — but I think he (would) have to show probably a very new side of himself to his brother cardinals,” Schlaeger said.

    NBC News’ Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

    Related:

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    Meet the new pope: Francis is humble leader who takes bus to work

    Francis: History behind pope's chosen name

    Full Pope Francis coverage from NBC News 

  • Lesbian heiress Gigi Chao on 'loving terms' with father despite $65 million dowry offer

    Bobby Yip / Reuters

    Gigi Chao, seen in the conference room of her office in Hong Kong Thursday, has received a flood of offers of dates and marriage from men.

    By The Associated Press

    HONG KONG -- The daughter of a flamboyant Hong Kong tycoon -- who has offered $65 million to any man who can woo her away from her lesbian partner -- said she's not upset with her father. Still, it's unlikely she will be accepting any of the marriage proposals flooding in.


    Cecil Chao made world headlines this week when he offered the unusual marriage bounty after learning that his daughter, Gigi Chao, had eloped with her partner to France.

    "I'm actually on very, very loving terms with my father. We speak on a daily basis. He just has a very interesting way of expressing his fatherly love," the 33-year-old told The Associated Press.

    CNBC's Robert Frank has all the details on the story about Gigi Chao's father who is offering $65 million to any man able to marry her.

    She said her father offered the reward because he was upset after learning she had "a church blessing in Paris" with her girlfriend of the past several years.

    "What this whole episode really highlights is that perhaps still, the Chinese — or in fact the Hong Kong mentality — can perhaps tolerate the 'don't ask, don't tell' view of sexuality," she said. "But as a social statement, it's still very much a sensitive issue."

    Hong Kong 'playboy tycoon' offers $65 million to find husband for lesbian daughter

    Hong Kong decriminalized homosexuality in 1991, but it does not legally recognize same-sex marriage.

    Cecil Chao is the chairman of Hong Kong property developer Cheuk Nang Holdings and has a reputation for being a playboy.

    Kin Cheung / AP

    Cecil Chao, chairman of Hong Kong property developer Cheuk Nang Holdings, pictured Friday, offered $65 million to any man who can woo her away from her lesbian partner.

    He once claimed to have had 10,000 girlfriends but has never married.

    He's also known for his love of Rolls-Royces and for being a qualified helicopter pilot, a skill he shares with Gigi Chao, one of his three children by three different women.

    Cecil Chao said Friday in a separate interview with the AP that reports that his daughter had married were just rumors.

    He added that he has received hundreds of offers from suitors since he made the offer and his daughter has probably had thousands.

    "I was very surprised about the reaction from around the world," said the 76-year-old tycoon, sporting gold, mirrored sunglasses and a sport jacket over an unbuttoned polo shirt. "Thousands of people writing to say they want to be my in-laws."

    Australia lawmakers reject gay marriage plan

    He said he's offering the money because he wants to make sure his daughter has a comfortable life in Hong Kong, which he believes will require a house worth $19 million. The rest of the money can be used for investments, he said.

    "Living a comfortable life in Hong Kong, not super-luxury, takes HK$500 million ($65 million)," he said.

    When asked whether she would accept an eligible suitor, Gigi Chao laughed off the question, saying, "We'll just worry about that when the time comes."

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Australia lawmakers reject gay marriage plan

    Daniel Munoz / Reuters

    Gay rights activists hold a rainbow flag during a rally to support same-sex marriage in central Sydney August 11.

    By NBC News staff

    Australian lawmakers voted on Wednesday by more than two-to-one against a proposal to legalize gay marriage.

    The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that 98 members of the House of Representatives – including Prime Minister Julia Gillard -- voted against the plan, while 42 had supported it.

    However Labor party politician Anthony Albanese, who supported the law, said that "all the figures show that there is majority community support on this issue... and I think at some future time, parliament will catch up with the community opinion," the broadcaster reported. "Just a few years ago there wouldn't have been the support of anything like 42 votes on the floor of the national parliament for a marriage equality bill," Albanese said.


    ABC reported that the head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, had in a statement thanked those politicians who “as a matter of conscience, voted to ensure that marriage remained between a man and a woman."

    ABC noted that Senator Cory Bernardi, of the center-right Liberal party, had resigned as a parliamentary secretary to his party’s leader Tony Abbott, after suggesting during a Senate debate Tuesday night that the next step after same-sex marriage would be to allow “three or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society -- or any other type of relationship.”

    He then added that there were “even some creepy people out there... [who] say it is OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals,” Bernardi said, according to ABC. |Will that be a future step? In the future will we say, 'These two creatures love each other and maybe they should be able to be joined in a union.’ I think that these things are the next step.”

    Supporter still 'confident'
    The Age newspaper reported that advocates of same-sex marriage would now seek to persuade states within Australia to change the law.

    "Now the federal parliament has effectively brushed the wishes of a majority of Australians aside, the states and territories will take the lead, making me confident we will see same sex marriages performed somewhere in Australia by the end of the year," Australian Marriage Equality convener Alex Greenwich said, according to the paper.

    The Age added that in August Tasmania’s lower house had passed a bill to legalize gay marriage, which would now go to the state’s Legislative Council.

    The paper said that Congress was to vote on another same-sex marriage bill Thursday.

    Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, whose partner Sophie Allouache gave birth to a baby girl in December, said Wednesday that she was hurt by the claim from some senators that children of same-sex couples were worse off than those of mixed-gender couples, The Age reported.

    "I do not regret that our daughter has Sophie and I as parents," Wong added. "I do regret that she lives in a world where some will tell her that her family is not normal. I regret that even in this chamber, elected representatives denigrate the worth of her family.”

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  • Poll: World is a happier place than 2007

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    TORONTO -- Despite economic hardship, wars and natural disasters, the world is a happier place today than it was four years ago and Indonesians and Mexicans seem to be the most contented people on the planet, according to one survey.

    Regionally, Latin America had the highest number of happy people, followed by North America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa. Only 15 percent of Europeans said they were very happy.

    More than three-quarters of people worldwide who were questioned in an international poll said they were happy with their lives and nearly a quarter described themselves as very happy.

    "It is not just about the economy and their well-being. It is about a whole series of other factors that make them who they are today," John Wright, senior vice president of Ipsos Global, told msnbc.com on Friday. Ipsos Global has surveyed the happiness of people in 24 countries since 2007.

    But Wright added that expectations of why people are happy should be carefully weighed.

    "What we discovered is sometimes the greatest happiness is a relationship, a hot cooked meal and roof over our heads for shelter," he said.

    Brazil and Turkey rounded out the top five happiest nations, while Hungary, South Korea, Russia, Spain and Italy had the fewest number of happy people.

    Perhaps proving that money can't buy happiness, residents of some of the world biggest economic powers, including the United States, Canada and Britain, fell in the middle of the happiness scale, he said.

    "There is a pattern that suggests that there are many other factors beyond the economy that make people happy, so it does provide one element but it is not the whole story," Wright said. "Relationships remain the No. 1 reason around the world where people say they have invested happiness and maybe in those cultures family has a much greater degree of impact."

    On a more personal note, married couples tended to be happier than singles but men seemed to be as content as women, Wright said. Education and age also had an impact with more people under 35 saying they are very happy than 25-49 year olds. Higher education also equated with higher happiness.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

  • Love behind bars: Infamous Swedish cannibal hopes to marry vampire

    By msnbc.com staff

    Two infamous Swedish murderers, the "Skara Cannibal" and the "Vampire Woman," hope to get married, according to Expressen, a Swedish newspaper.

    The couple met at their high-security psychiatric ward in eastern Sweden, the paper said, and flirted over Internet chat rooms.

    ”We got together on November 13th. 'Do you want to be my girlfriend?' he asked on MSN. Then we decided to get engaged, which we did on December 9th,” Michelle Gustafsson, aka the "Vampire Woman," told Expressen.

    Gustafsson was convicted in 2010 of the stabbing death of a father of four in Stockholm, the paper said. She wrote chilling lyrics on her blog about killing people and posted pictures of herself dressed as a vampire with bloody lips.

    Isakin Jonsson, known as the ”Skara Cannibal,” was convicted in March 2011 of killing of his girlfriend, Helle Christensen, a mother of five, Expressen said. After stabbing her to death and cutting off body parts, he ate some of them.

    “I love Michelle. I have never met anyone like her. I would like to lead a non-criminal life,” Jonsson told Expressen.

    It is unclear if the couple will be released anytime soon. According to the prison hospital, some inmates have been there for 20 years.

    Even so, the couple hopes to live together at some point.

    “We want to get to live together, keep dogs and spend time on our hobbies, piercing and tattoos,” Gustafsson told Expressen. 

    More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

     

  • Til death do us part: Marriage to dead girlfriend draws mixed reaction

    By msnbc.com staff

    Chadil Deffy posted photos of his dead bride on Facebook.

    Hopeless romantic or macabre publicity hound?

    A Thai television director’s decision to marry his dead girlfriend and post photos and video of the event to Facebook and YouTube is drawing mixed reaction from the public.

    Chadil Deffy, also known as Deff Yingyuen, married his girlfriend of 10 years, Sarinya “Anne” Kamsook, early this month as she lay in a coffin in a wedding-cum-funeral at a temple in Surin Province, the Pattaya Daily News reported.

     During the ceremony, the 28-year-old groom, wearing a black tuxedo, placed a ring on the finger of his late girlfriend, whose body was lying on a raised platform, dressed in a white bridal dress.

    He put photos of himself and his dead bride on his personal Facebook page under an album titled "Corpse Bride." He also uploaded a video to YouTube.

    The couple met while studying at Eastern Asia University 10 years ago and had planned to get married for a while but Kamsook died in a car accident on Jan. 3, according to media reports. She was 29.

    A friend of Deffy, Onsiri Pravattiyagul, wrote in an opinion column this week in The Bangkok Post:

    The "wedding" was his attempt to right a wrong, however belated the gesture might have been.

    As expected, the initial public reaction was an outpouring of sympathy for the "groom" and a wave of sentimental remarks. The romantically inclined were moved by this expression of "true love," however unconventional. It seemed to hit a nerve with many people. The offline media picked up on the buzz, too, and went to town with the story. Chadil found himself under a spotlight, experiencing an unexpected 15 minutes of fame.

    Also as expected, within days, the backlash began — and it wasn't at all kind. In a heartbeat, Chadil went from being viewed as a hopeless romantic to being vilified as a publicity-hungry opportunist.

    Pravattiyagul said Deffy was heartbroken and “wasn't thinking about the possibility of fame when he decided to put a ring on her cold finger. He merely wanted to make things right, however small or inadequate the gesture might seem.”

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  • Israeli high court keeps Israeli, Palestinian spouses apart

    By NBC News and news services

    Khatib family photo

    Taiseer and Lana Khatib will be forced to live apart under a ruling by the Israel high court, which upheld a 2003 law banning many Palestinians who marry Israelis from living in the Jewish state.

    An Israeli high court ruling has left at least one family angry, frustrated and in limbo because the husband, an Israeli citizen, will be forbidden legally from living with his Palestinian wife.

    The Israeli Supreme Court reaffirmed late Wednesday a 2003 citizenship law that bans most Palestinians who marry Israelis from living inside the Jewish state. The law is intended to prevent Palestinian migration to Israel on the pretext of family unification.

    The law is believed to have prevented thousands of Palestinians from living with their spouses. At the core of the ruling lies the notion that some Israelis see the Palestinians as "the enemy" and as "potential terrorists."

    Six years ago, Taiseer Khatib, an Israeli Arab living in the northern city of Acre, married Lana, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Jenin. They have two children, Adnan, 4, and Isra, 3.

    Now the Khatib family faces the deportation of Lana back to Jenin.

    "This ruling is all about racism," Taiseer Khatib told NBC News on Thursday. "The Israelis want to change the demography here by reducing the number of Palestinians inside Israel. What choices are left for me?"

    Khatib's choices are all bleak. The only way for this family to stay together is by emigrating to another country. Khatib, as an Israeli, by law cannot enter the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

    The ruling was handed down by a 6-5 majority.

    Judge Asher Grunis, who belonged to the majority, wrote in the ruling that human rights are not a recipe for "national suicide."

    Supreme Court President Judge Dorit Beinish wrote in the minority opinion that the disagreement on the issue revolved around one of the most difficult questions in the state's history, the battle against terror while at the same time maintaining the nation's democratic nature.

    According to the ruling, about 135,000 Palestinians were granted Israeli citizenship through marriage between 1994 and 2002. Most of them were married to Israeli Arabs. This was a jump from just a few hundred such cases before 1994.

    About 20 percent of Israel's citizens are Arabs. They share common roots with the Palestinian community in the West Bank, Gaza and abroad, and frequently intermarry.

    The law bans granting citizenship or residency to Palestinian spouses of Israelis but allows for exemptions for those not believed to pose security risks, including Palestinian men older than 35 and women older than 25.

    Adalah Arab, a human rights group that petitioned the high court, told NBC News that between 2002 and 2008 about 10,400 families living in Israel applied for a reunification request.

    Last year, only 33 out of 3,000 applications for exemptions were approved, Adalah attorney Sawsan Zaher told The Associated Press.

    "Israel is considered one of the strongest military countries in the world," Khatib told NBC News. "Are they afraid of my wife? She is not a terrorist; I promise you she doesn't consist of any threat to Israel."

    "Our only way of action is to apply to the world and international courts to uncover the real face of Israel," Khatib said. "Can you imagine me raising my children here while their mother will be in Jenin? This is not only crazy but impossible."

    Reporting from NBC News' Paul Goldman and The Associated Press.

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