Children born in Paris will no longer have a 'Mother' and 'Father' on their birth certificates, but rather a 'Parent 1' and 'Parent 2'. The decision was taken last month by the city's mayor's office as a means to end discrimination against homosexual families.
Same-sex marriages have been legal in France since 2013 and, according to official statistics, homosexual families account for only 3% of families in the country.
Yet, to accommodate a tiny minority, authorities are now forcing heterosexual families to give up on age-old cherished words like mother and father.
While I can totally see how it might be uncomfortable for homosexual couples to have to fill out forms using the traditional terms, I cannot understand why authorities in the French capital could not issue different certificates so as to accommodate everybody, not just a minority. Have the forms the same size, color, lettering... whatever and have one set say mother/father and the other parent 1/ parent 2. Can't be that hard!
Paris is the first French city to take such drastic 'anti-discriminatory' action, yet other institutions and businesses in France have already discontinued the use of 'mother' and 'father'. The national railway offers large family cards which list 'Parent 1' and 'Parent 2'. The same goes for some nursery schools and cafeterias around the country.
Again, in an age when most everything is done online I think it would be easy enough to have a drop-down menu and have people select the title which best applies to their situation.
The next logical step is to ban the use of such discriminatory terms altogether. A child getting a boo-boo in a public park should be required to start crying 'Parent 1! Parent 1!' instead of 'Mommy! Mommy!' which might be offensive to a child from a homosexual family!
The measure adopted by the Paris city authorities does not specify who's going to be listed under Parent 1 – the mother or the father, but the issue gave rise to a barrage of sarcastic comments in the French media – as it is kind of obvious Parent 1 sounds more important than Parent 2!
France is the first European country to adopt this form of extreme political correctness. Canada, where Premier Trudeau once famously outlawed the term 'mankind', is another example of PC gone mad country. The Canadian government has vowed to make all its forms gender-neutral, while public servants have been told to stop using terms like 'mother' and 'father'.
You might think these officials give in to demands from the people, that there are people clamoring for these rights, but in fact it is not the society that demands change. It's governments that want to change society. Our society!