The wedding that was not supposed to happen

On 29 September 2015, a court in Marseille handed down a ruling without precedent in France. The criminal court found the deputy district mayor Sabrina Hout guilty of discrimination. Her offence: she had refused to marry two women.

The story began in August 2014, a good year after marriage for all was introduced. Claude and Hélène, a couple for around twelve years, wanted to marry at their district town hall. Hout was assigned to the ceremony. But when it was their turn, she complained of feeling unwell and left the wedding to a district councillor. He, however, was not authorised to conduct it. On the same day, Hout married four other couples, all of them heterosexual.

The consequences were bitter. The two women's marriage was declared invalid, and they had to go before the registrar a second time before they were legally married.

In court, three witnesses testified that Hout had cited her religious convictions. She herself denied any homophobia and spoke of an unfortunate chain of circumstances. She said she was ashamed if her behaviour had been understood that way.

The court did not accept this. It even went beyond the prosecution's request and imposed a five-month suspended prison sentence instead of three. In addition, she had to pay compensation to the couple and to the associations SOS Homophobie and Mousse. The judges called the evidence overwhelming. No one, they said, should have reason to doubt the neutrality of elected officials, including on account of their sexual orientation.

That was not quite the end of the story. A few months later, district mayor Samia Ghali reinstated her convicted deputy. In theory, Hout was allowed to conduct weddings again. For the time being, however, she refrained from doing so.