France’s highest court has upheld its legal definition of marriage as one man and one woman.

The country’s law was being challenged by a lesbian couple who wanted inheritance rights and joint custody rights which are reserved for married couples.

But the court, known formally as the Constitutional Council, ruled in favour of the traditional definition of marriage.

‘First step’

The Council said it was up to Parliament to change the law.

Christine Boutin, head of the small Christian-Democratic party said: “We can only hail this decision, which respects our political-judicial tradition”.

She added: “The right to marry for homosexual couples would only be the first step before adoption follows.”

Enforce

In Britain there are calls to allow ‘same-sex marriage’, changing the definition of marriage and imposing it on society.

Last September such a move became official Liberal Democrat policy.

But Ben Summerskill, head of homosexual lobby group Stonewall, said the Lib Dem motion will cost as much as £5 billion to implement.

Campaign

Ed Miliband, the Labour Party leader, has declared his support for same-sex marriage.

He told homosexual news website PinkNews before he became Labour leader: “I want to see heterosexual and same-sex partnerships put on an equal basis and a Labour Party that I lead will campaign to make gay marriage happen.”

Shortly before last year’s General Election, David Cameron said the Conservatives were not planning to legalise full homosexual marriage.

Radical

Homosexual campaigner Peter Tatchell is behind a controversial campaign to redefine marriage through the European Court of Human Rights.

His campaign saw four heterosexual couples apply for civil partnership licences and four same-sex couples apply for marriage licences, fully aware that their applications would be declined.

In October Mr Tatchell celebrated 40 years since the formation of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a radical anti-family movement.

The ultimate goal of the group, as stated by its 1971 manifesto, was to destroy the nuclear family.

Demolish

Its manifesto said: “We must aim at the abolition of the family”.

It claimed the family unit consisted “of the man in charge, a slave as his wife, and their children on whom they force themselves as the ideal models. The very form of the family works against homosexuality”.

The document urged activists to target law, education and the media as part of a cultural revolution to demolish the family.