Like many couples basking in the euphoria of France’s passing of a law to allow same-sex marriage five years ago, Pierre-Jean Jestin and his husband started immediately on adoption proceedings. Mr. Jestin, who was adopted himself, knew how long the process could last – for all couples, gay or straight – and didn’t want to wait.

But during one of the interviews halfway through the lengthy, paperwork-intensive process, Jestin says, “A psychologist told us, ‘In any case, you’ll never adopt in France.’ ... The council [that ultimately decides on adoption cases] is Catholic and they’ll never give a child to a gay couple.”

Jestin and his husband closed their file indefinitely with the state. One year later, they had adopted two boys from Brazil – and acquired a bitter taste about France and gay rights.

France, like nearly two dozen countries in Europe, has passed laws in recent years to allow marriage and adoption for same-sex couples. But social norms and a religious history rooted in conservative Catholicism have prevented LGBT couples from exercising the rights to which they are legally entitled.

In June, France was wrapped in controversy after two regional adoption agency officials made disparaging remarks about same-sex couples – one saying that agencies would always favor heterosexual couples over homosexual ones, and another that same-sex couples were “atypical” and should be prepared to adopt “atypical” children – those who were older or with disabilities.

The comments have dredged up latent discrimination in a country that thought it had progressed further than that, and have forced French society to look inward for solutions.

“In terms of homosexuality in general, France is still quite conservative even when it comes to accepting same-sex marriage,” says Sébastien Chauvin, a French sociologist who studies gender and sexuality at the University of Lausanne. “You can see this in terms of visibility in public spaces… In France, people are still hiding.”

While the law to allow same-sex marriage has been accepted relatively innocuously in France, that for same-sex adoption has been a harder sell. Read more via Christian Science Monitor