French high court rejects marriage of gay couple

France's highest court Tuesday rejected as unlawful the first marriage by a gay couple in France and annulled the men's union. Stephane Charpin and Bertrand Charpentier were married in a civil ceremony on June 5, 2004, in Begles, a town in the southwest Bordeaux region. The government immediately said the union was outside the law, and a series of court decisions unfavorable to the couple has followed. In the latest decision, the court ruled Tuesday that "under French law, marriage is a union between a man and a woman," backing a 2005 decision by an appeals court in Bordeaux. No other gay couple has married in France since Charpin and Charpentier's 2004 union.