Some of the priests leading the rock-throwing throngs who stormed past police cordons could be seen participating in the melee; one repeatedly slammed a stool into the windshield of one of several minibuses trying to carry the marchers to safety, while another punched marchers and tried to drag a driver out of a bus. Some gave their names in interviews.

But as of Sunday, the Georgian police have made no arrests, and there are few signs that the investigation is moving forward.

Instead, a bishop who helped to organize the mass turnout — ostensibly a counterprotest — said from the pulpit that while the violence was “regrettable” and those who committed it should be punished, the Georgian Orthodox Church was obligated to protest the gay rights rally and would “not allow anyone to humiliate us.”

“When there are so many people, it is difficult to speak only about Christianity and morals,” said the bishop, Iakob Iakobashvili, in his Sunday sermon in Tbilisi. “Many were not able to overcome their nature and saw enemies in the others, said bad words and punched them. I was told clergymen were among them. I am not able to either condemn or justify them. They are also humans.”

Georgia’s prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has benefited from the support of the church, which exercises enormous power in the country, though usually behind the scenes. His decision on whether to pursue prosecutions will serve as a test of that relationship.

On Friday evening, with crowds of men still roaming downtown Tbilisi in search of gays, Mr. Ivanishvili promised a quick response to the violence. Yet on Sunday, at a parade for a local police force, he made no mention of either arrests or an investigation. Instead, his comments celebrated the role of the police in preventing worse injuries to the marchers. Several officers were among those hospitalized, including one with a broken leg; and a number of marchers and a journalist suffered head or chest injuries from being hit with rocks, according to Georgian news reports.

“When the question arose about saving the minority,” Mr. Ivanishvili said, “police bravely acted in their defense, and were able to lead them away from the raving masses.”

Zviad Koridze, a veteran local journalist at the Tbilisi-based Council of Ethics for Journalists, called the slow pace a reminder of the church’s influence.

“The government is acting very carefully, one could say ineffectively,” said Mr. Koridze in a telephone interview. “Everyone is simply waiting. Because in three days they should have made arrests and given some sort of answer to the events in Tbilisi.”

While the Georgian Orthodox Church usually wields its power discreetly, it has occasionally, and effectively, taken overt political or social action. In 2010, Orthodox activists began picketing a television station over “Night with Shorena,” a television show run by a former Georgian Playboy cover model who advocated sex before marriage. The show was closed down after several months. In 2011, the church protested a law granting minority religions legal standing. In 2012, the church joined protests over the torture of prison inmates. Ilia II, the Georgian Orthodox patriarch, has warned Georgians that placing their children in foreign schools would harm them morally.

Ilia II is widely acknowledged to be the most popular figure in the country. He offered no sermon on Sunday, but on Friday, after the violence, he urged protesters to leave the streets and for both sides “to pray for one another.”

“We do not accept violence,” he said, according to Interfax. “But it’s also unacceptable to give propaganda” to homosexuality.

A day earlier, he had urged the Georgian government to ban the gay rights march, writing that the majority of Georgians saw gay activism as “an insult.”

Outside of the Tbilisi church where Bishop Iakobashvili spoke Sunday, Elza Kurtanidze, 34, a former schoolteacher, said that she had spent the last days “hotly” debating if those who attacked the marchers should be punished.

“We have already gone too far by having gays and lesbians openly promoting their way of life,” she said. “This is unacceptable! By allowing things like this, we let Georgia turn from the road of its traditional destiny.”

“Arrests will be too much; it will help to further excite the situation in Georgia,” she added.

Also outside the church was Leila Dzneladze, 16, who said that while she opposed the violence, she believed that the “truth was on the side of the church.”

“No one should be punished for this,” she said. “This is for God to judge them, not us.”

Andrew Roth reported from Moscow, and Olesya Vartanyan from Tbilisi, Georgia.

France will see its first gay weddings within days, after French President Francois Hollande signed a law Saturday authorizing marriage and adoption by same-sex couples and ending months of nationwide protests and wrenching debate.

Hollande’s office said he signed the bill Saturday morning, a day after the Constitutional Council struck down a challenge to the law and ruled it in line with France’s constitution.

Hollande, a Socialist, had made legalizing gay marriage one of his campaign pledges last year. While polls for years have shown majority support for gay marriage in France, adoption by same-sex couples is more controversial.

The parliamentary debate exposed a deep conservatism and attachment to traditional families in France’s rural core that is often eclipsed by and at odds with libertine Paris.

But mostly, it tapped into deep discontent with the Socialist government, largely over Hollande’s handling of the economy. Months of anti-gay marriage protests became a flashpoint for frustrations with Hollande, and occasionally degenerated into violence.

In addition, gay rights groups reported a rise in attacks on homosexuals as the parliamentary debate was under way. Protest organizers distanced themselves from the trouble-makers.

The opposition isn’t ready to give up. It plans a protest May 26 that aims to parlay the success of the anti-gay marriage movement into a broader anti-Hollande one. Among those expected to attend is Jean-Francois Cope, the leader of the opposition UMP party, riven by divisions and struggling for direction since Nicolas Sarkozy lost the presidency last year.

Hollande warned that he wouldn’t accept any disruption of France’s first gay marriages.

One couple signed up Saturday to tie the knot on May 29 in the gay-friendly southern French city of Montpellier.

“We’re very happy that today we can finally talk of love after all the talk of legislation and political battles,” one of the future newlyweds, Vincent Autin, said on France-Info radio.

According to French law, couples must register to marry in city hall and wait at least 10 days before holding a ceremony so that anyone objecting to the union — such as an existing spouse — has time to intervene.

Marketing whizzes are already preparing lesbian and gay cake toppers, his-and-his wedding bands, and other services for France’s gay weddings.

Despite the protests, the law passed easily in both houses of parliament, which are dominated by Hollande’s Socialists. And the Constitutional Council said, “Marriage as a union between a man and a woman cannot be considered a fundamental principle.”

France is the most populous country to have legal gay marriages, and the 14th country worldwide. In the United States, Minnesota became the 12th state in the country to legalize same-sex unions on Tuesday.

In neighboring Belgium, thousands of people took to the confetti-covered streets of Brussels to take part in an annual gay pride march on Saturday. Trucks blasting music and carrying dance floors made their way through cheering crowds. Belgium legalized gay marriage 10 years ago and permitted adoption for same-sex couples seven years ago.

The mayor of the southern city of Montpellier, sometimes called “the French San Francisco,” intends to officiate at the first gay wedding, which is likely to be no sooner than May 29, because by French law there must be 10 days of consideration between the publication of the banns and the ceremony itself.

“Love has won out over hate,” the mayor, Hélène Mandroux, a Socialist like Mr. Hollande, said Saturday. She has been pressing for a gay marriage law since 2009, while voicing concerns that the first such wedding could attract violent protests along with the inevitable and engineered publicity.

The government’s spokeswoman and minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, intends to attend.

One couple seeking to be the first to wed under the new law is Vincent Autin, 40, the president of Lesbian and Gay Pride Montpellier, and his partner of seven years, Bruno, 30. Bruno prefers not to provide his surname because he works for the state, though the couple has been featured on television, in newspapers and magazines.

France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage. In the United States, Washington, D.C., and 12 states have legalized same-sex marriage.

For Mr. Hollande, who is riding low in the opinion polls, the passage of the law over considerable public opposition was a significant victory, given his campaign promise to legalize gay marriage within the first year of his administration (Saturday was within days of his May 15 anniversary in office).

But considering the opposition and significant economic problems in France, now in a triple-dip recession, Mr. Hollande also wants to move on to other important and controversial changes in the structure of the French economy, including pension changes and spending cuts.

Mr. Hollande signed the bill a day after the Constitutional Council dismissed a legal challenge by the right-wing opposition. “I will ensure that the law applies across the whole territory, in full, and I will not accept any disruption of these marriages,” he said.

Gay rights advocates praised the law, while a watchdog group, SOS Homophobie, said that France “has taken a great step forward today, although it is regrettable that it was taken in a climate of bad faith and homophobic violence.”

Protests against the law, led by religious leaders and conservative groups, drew hundreds of thousands of people at their height, with scattered violence on the margins. Opponents of the measures have vowed to fight on, having already called another protest for May 26. There was a small protest Friday night near the historic Pantheon, in the Latin Quarter.

The law allows all married couples to adopt children. It does not provide state aid to help same-sex couples procreate, however.

The leader of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement, Jean-François Copé, told the newspaper Le Monde on Saturday that if the right returned to power (which is hardly imminent), it would “rewrite” the measure to clarify the legal descent of children adopted by gay couples and to “better protect the rights of children.”

He said he disagreed with the law as it stood but respected the decision of the Constitutional Council. “It is a decision that I regret but that I accept,” he said Friday.

Mr. Copé said he would attend the May 26 demonstration, which he hoped would broadly include all those disappointed with Mr. Hollande’s leadership. He called on them to turn their unhappiness into political commitment.

Police try to stop an Orthodox Christian activist during clashes at an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) rally in Tbilisi
(STRINGER, REUTERS / May 17, 2013)

Senate Democrats are in such a bind over addressing gay rights under immigration reform that they’re turning to President Barack Obama for help.

They’re increasingly uneasy about risking Republican support but reluctant to tell gay rights advocates that an amendment allowing American citizens to seek green cards for their same-sex foreign partners may not get a vote in the Judiciary Committee.

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After strategically keeping the White House at a distance, some key Democrats are privately advocating for the president himself to ask Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chief proponent of the measure, to hold off on offering the amendment until the floor debate, where it’s unlikely to pass.

(PHOTOS: Pols who evolved on gay marriage)

“He is working behind the scenes,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a Gang of Eight member, told POLITICO when asked whether Democrats wanted Obama to get involved, although he declined to get into details. “Obviously, it is Sen. Leahy’s call.”

Leahy said he spoke with Obama on Wednesday, but the issue didn’t come up. Even if it did, Leahy said, a presidential intervention wouldn’t necessarily sway him.

“I am the most senior member of the Senate; I’m an experienced chairman. He’s happy I’m handling immigration,” Leahy said. “He hasn’t suggested whether I should or shouldn’t do it because he knows I’ll make up my own mind.”

Concerns about the fallout have paralyzed Democrats, who are being forced by Republicans to choose between delivering a win for gay families and maintaining bipartisan support for immigration reform. No Democrat wants to be the first to make the decision and take the blame from gay voters, an influential constituency.

(PHOTOS: 20 quotes on immigration reform)

But key Republican immigration backers such as Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina insist they would abandon the bill — an outcome that could cripple the prospects of passage. As much as they support the protections for gay families, Democrats remain nervous about jeopardizing what is viewed as the best opportunity in a generation for securing comprehensive immigration reform.

“This one is something I worry about all the time,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a Gang of Eight leader and Judiciary Committee member, said last week. “I’m a good sleeper, but I wake up in the morning thinking of these things, sometimes early in the morning.”

It’s unclear if fears of GOP defections would compel Obama to weigh in with Leahy at some point before the Judiciary Committee wraps up the drafting process next week. Administration officials view the immigration bill as a realistic legislative achievement — and they may want it now more than ever to show that Obama’s second term hasn’t been immobilized by a spate a scandals.

Obama, who included the gay rights provision in his immigration reform blueprint released earlier this year, said during a trip this month to Costa Rica that he had hoped to see it in the Gang of Eight’s bill.

But he also didn’t call it a must-have.

The refusal emphasized the Russian government’s support for a wave of legislation in cities across the country banning “homosexual propaganda.”

The Moscow decision was issued just days after a man was killed in a savage attack that investigators said was motivated by homophobia in the city of Volgograd in southern Russia.

“According to Russian legislation, we must work clearly and consistently on maintaining morality, oriented toward the teaching of patriotism in the growing generation, and not toward incomprehensible aspirations,” said Aleksei Mayorov, the director of regional safety for the city administration, in a statement carried by the Interfax news agency.

“In our opinion,” Mr. Mayorov continued, “there is no demand for these kinds of events in the city.”

Critics of a proposed federal ban on “homosexual propaganda,” an umbrella term for rallies and other public demonstrations by gay rights advocates, say the local laws are already encouraging hate crimes against gay men.

The murder in Volgograd last week of a 23-year-old man, who investigators said had been sodomized with beer bottles and beaten to death with a concrete block, was reported on the national television news and evoked an outcry from Russia’s gay community.

In an opinion article in the British newspaper The Guardian on Tuesday, Anton Krasovsky, the former editor in chief of a Russian cable television channel who was fired after coming out as a gay man on the air, said that Russian lawmakers were creating a culture of fear for gays.

“So as far as the deputies are concerned, I am not a human being in the same sense that they are,” he wrote, referring to members of Parliament. “I am to be classed as scum, like a terrorist.”

Twitter.com

@GovMarkDayton posted this photo on Twitter.com, with the caption “It’s history”

As thousands cheered outside the state Capitol with rainbow and American flags, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill on Tuesday that makes it possible for same-sex couples to get married.

Minnesota is the 12^th state to pass a gay marriage bill and the first Midwestern state to do so through a legislative vote.

“What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

The bill was signed a day after it was approved by the Senate in a 37-30 vote.

“It is an overwhelming joyful day, the culmination of years of work. Two years ago it would have been unimaginable to be here,” said Jake Loesch, communications director with Minnesotans United, a LGBT group. “It was incredible, we had 7,000 people cheering as the bill as signed, it was probably the biggest crowd the Capitol has ever seen,”

Gay activists from all over the country cheered this decision.

“The transformative nature of people talking about their love and their lives is clear, as we see in reaching this milestone in Minnesota, and in the fact that a clear and growing majority of Americans supports the freedom to marry,” said Rea Carey, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“The many years of door-knocking, phone calls and poignant conversations about why marriage matters have made a difference.”

And Minnesotans United tweeted: “Freedom prevails. Thank you, Minnesota!”

The push for gay marriage was a quick change from just six months ago, when LGBT supporters had to mobilize to turn back a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex unions. Minnesota already had such a law, but an amendment would have been more difficult to ever undo.

But voters rejected the amendment, and the forces that organized to defeat it soon turned their attention to legalizing gay marriage. Democrats’ takeover of the Legislature in the November election aided their cause.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. Now we have to make sure that all the legislators that made this day possible will be reelected,” said Loesch.

Tonight, the city of Saint Paul is hosting a party to celebrate this historical moment. The law will go into effect on August 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Twitter.com

@GovMarkDayton posted this photo on Twitter.com, with the caption “It’s history”

As thousands cheered outside the state Capitol with rainbow and American flags, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill on Tuesday that makes it possible for same-sex couples to get married.

Minnesota is the 12^th state to pass a gay marriage bill and the first Midwestern state to do so through a legislative vote.

“What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

The bill was signed a day after it was approved by the Senate in a 37-30 vote.

“It is an overwhelming joyful day, the culmination of years of work. Two years ago it would have been unimaginable to be here,” said Jake Loesch, communications director with Minnesotans United, a LGBT group. “It was incredible, we had 7,000 people cheering as the bill as signed, it was probably the biggest crowd the Capitol has ever seen,”

Gay activists from all over the country cheered this decision.

“The transformative nature of people talking about their love and their lives is clear, as we see in reaching this milestone in Minnesota, and in the fact that a clear and growing majority of Americans supports the freedom to marry,” said Rea Carey, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“The many years of door-knocking, phone calls and poignant conversations about why marriage matters have made a difference.”

And Minnesotans United tweeted: “Freedom prevails. Thank you, Minnesota!”

The push for gay marriage was a quick change from just six months ago, when LGBT supporters had to mobilize to turn back a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex unions. Minnesota already had such a law, but an amendment would have been more difficult to ever undo.

But voters rejected the amendment, and the forces that organized to defeat it soon turned their attention to legalizing gay marriage. Democrats’ takeover of the Legislature in the November election aided their cause.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. Now we have to make sure that all the legislators that made this day possible will be reelected,” said Loesch.

Tonight, the city of Saint Paul is hosting a party to celebrate this historical moment. The law will go into effect on August 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Twitter.com

@GovMarkDayton posted this photo on Twitter.com, with the caption “It’s history”

As thousands cheered outside the state Capitol with rainbow and American flags, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill on Tuesday that makes it possible for same-sex couples to get married.

Minnesota is the 12^th state to pass a gay marriage bill and the first Midwestern state to do so through a legislative vote.

“What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

The bill was signed a day after it was approved by the Senate in a 37-30 vote.

“It is an overwhelming joyful day, the culmination of years of work. Two years ago it would have been unimaginable to be here,” said Jake Loesch, communications director with Minnesotans United, a LGBT group. “It was incredible, we had 7,000 people cheering as the bill as signed, it was probably the biggest crowd the Capitol has ever seen,”

Gay activists from all over the country cheered this decision.

“The transformative nature of people talking about their love and their lives is clear, as we see in reaching this milestone in Minnesota, and in the fact that a clear and growing majority of Americans supports the freedom to marry,” said Rea Carey, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“The many years of door-knocking, phone calls and poignant conversations about why marriage matters have made a difference.”

And Minnesotans United tweeted: “Freedom prevails. Thank you, Minnesota!”

The push for gay marriage was a quick change from just six months ago, when LGBT supporters had to mobilize to turn back a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex unions. Minnesota already had such a law, but an amendment would have been more difficult to ever undo.

But voters rejected the amendment, and the forces that organized to defeat it soon turned their attention to legalizing gay marriage. Democrats’ takeover of the Legislature in the November election aided their cause.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. Now we have to make sure that all the legislators that made this day possible will be reelected,” said Loesch.

Tonight, the city of Saint Paul is hosting a party to celebrate this historical moment. The law will go into effect on August 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Twitter.com

@GovMarkDayton posted this photo on Twitter.com, with the caption “It’s history”

As thousands cheered outside the state Capitol with rainbow and American flags, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill on Tuesday that makes it possible for same-sex couples to get married.

Minnesota is the 12^th state to pass a gay marriage bill and the first Midwestern state to do so through a legislative vote.

“What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

The bill was signed a day after it was approved by the Senate in a 37-30 vote.

“It is an overwhelming joyful day, the culmination of years of work. Two years ago it would have been unimaginable to be here,” said Jake Loesch, communications director with Minnesotans United, a LGBT group. “It was incredible, we had 7,000 people cheering as the bill as signed, it was probably the biggest crowd the Capitol has ever seen,”

Gay activists from all over the country cheered this decision.

“The transformative nature of people talking about their love and their lives is clear, as we see in reaching this milestone in Minnesota, and in the fact that a clear and growing majority of Americans supports the freedom to marry,” said Rea Carey, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“The many years of door-knocking, phone calls and poignant conversations about why marriage matters have made a difference.”

And Minnesotans United tweeted: “Freedom prevails. Thank you, Minnesota!”

The push for gay marriage was a quick change from just six months ago, when LGBT supporters had to mobilize to turn back a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex unions. Minnesota already had such a law, but an amendment would have been more difficult to ever undo.

But voters rejected the amendment, and the forces that organized to defeat it soon turned their attention to legalizing gay marriage. Democrats’ takeover of the Legislature in the November election aided their cause.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. Now we have to make sure that all the legislators that made this day possible will be reelected,” said Loesch.

Tonight, the city of Saint Paul is hosting a party to celebrate this historical moment. The law will go into effect on August 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report