Furthermore, "we began to be arrested" for speaking out in opposition to the law, Rochère said.
"In those demonstrations we have had to defend freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience, because many of the demonstrations have been forbidden by the ministry of the interior," she explained.
Some violators of the government's restriction on the marches, such as a 23-year-old man named Nicolas, were arrested and subjected to "scandalous" prison conditions, she said.
Violations of free speech escalated to the point that the European Union called on France to respect human rights. The French human rights department is also investigating the restrictions on free speech and expression "because it thinks what happened was absolutely illegal."
"France is the country of human rights, but we are in a situation in which human rights are no longer respected."
In spite of these difficulties, the group will "go on insisting that we will never surrender." Rochère stated that even she and the other organizers "didn't realize the determination and motivation and dynamism of each of those Frenchmen who were convinced" of the nature of marriage as an institution oriented to the family.
Since the law has passed, she said, parents across the country have been organizing in their communities "to exercise their parental rights" to know what is being taught to their children about marriage, sexuality, and gender.
Allies of the Manif movement "have proposed to French people to think and debate about" the nature of the family, and potential means of protecting the family through economic policy, and are getting ready to protect the definition of the family as upcoming laws attempt to enshrine in French law the idea that two parents of the same sex are no different from parents of the opposite sex.
Instead, what Rochère and others involved in La Manif Pour Tous wish to emphasize, is the image of "family as the place of solidarity" and the place of filiation.
"When you understand that a child is born to a mother and a father," she said, the need to protect the "right for children to have a mother and a father" becomes very clear.
This right can be balanced with the rights of all persons, she emphasized, and people should "have great respect" for persons with same-sex attractions.
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"Lack of respect for homosexual persons is, of course, abnormal," Rochère remarked, but stressed that working against the redefinition of marriage "is not homophobia" because "the subject of the family is of interest to all persons."
"It's a scandal to deprive children of a father and a mother" by adopting them to same-sex couples, she continued, because in such a case "they will be deprived of either a father or a mother."
In such a case, she proclaimed, the government and society should work to protect children. "The role of the society of the civilization is to protect the weak," Rochère said, and it is important for those in power to recognize that "children can't be used as anyone wants, they have rights."
"What is important is that we be together for families."
Adelaide Mena was the DC Correspondent for Catholic News Agency until 2017 and is a 2012 graduate of Princeton University.