AS YOU might expect, Germany’s Catholic hierarchs were less than thrilled when legislators voted on June 30th, by 393 votes to 226, to legalise same-sex marriage. Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin was one of many top clerics who voiced the church’s view that a distinction between civil partnership, for gay couples, and marriage, for heterosexual ones, ought to be kept. The decision to do away with it, he grumbled,

abandons the differentiated perception of various forms of partnership in order to stress the value of same-sex partnerships…Differentiation isn’t discrimination, and same-sex cohabitation can be valued through other institutional arrangements without opening up the legal institute of marriage.

But in truth, public opposition to the change has been relatively muffled, especially when compared to the huge street demonstrations by social conservatives which were triggered by a similar measure in France in 2013.

The very fact that German bishops insist they see some value in same-sex partnerships (so long as they are not described as marriage) might be surprising to an American who is accustomed to tooth-and-nail culture wars.

In France, gay marriage became law in May 2013. Street protests by social conservatives, including four huge rallies in Paris within six months, failed to stop the change. But they made history nonetheless, as unexpectedly large social and political phenomena.

True to the movement’s name—Manif pour Tous (Protest for All)—the French gatherings brought together a broad coalition. Some came from the political right and far-right: there were well-heeled Catholics from posh parts of Paris, poorer ones from the provinces and some Muslims. Some supporters even spoke the language of the anti-capitalist left, arguing that gay adoptions and surrogacy might lead to a heartless market in embryos. To some extent, the movement simply capitalised on the general unpopularity of François Hollande, then the Socialist president.

Germany, too, has seen street demonstrations in imitation of the French ones, under an identical banner, Demo für Alle. As in France, the rallies have received discreet encouragement from politicians and clerics. But the German assemblies (focused in particular on moves to liberalise education about sex and gender) have been smaller, and they have drawn counter-demonstrations. It is still possible that same-sex marriage will be contested in Germany, on grounds that it violates the constitution. But the argument will be conducted in the courts, not on the streets.

This Franco-German contrast seems paradoxical. Although each country comprises a wide spectrum of opinion, German social norms are in some ways more conservative than French ones. (Take the issue of abortion. Although both countries have quite liberal regimes for terminating a pregnancy up to 12 weeks, the German one lays down that women must have counselling—in which they are told that fetuses have rights—before undergoing the procedure. That would be hard to imagine in France.)

Some reasons for the French-German difference are clear enough. Any popular street movement that shades into the far-right feels toxic in Germany, more so than in France, for the obvious historical reasons.

But perhaps a deeper, albeit unproveable, reason has to do with the formal status of religion in the two countries. In France, ever since the Revolution, and especially since the regime of laicité or strict secularism began in 1905, being a practising Catholic (or, you might argue, practising any religion seriously) has felt counter-cultural: an edgy act of protest against the existing order. The language of victimhood and grievance (even among wearers of blue blazers or silk scarves) does not feel strange.

In Germany, by comparison, the main Christian chuches (Lutheran and Catholic) have a privileged position. Although their membership is dwindling, as recently released figures confirm, they still haul in taxes from tens of millions of citizens under a system overseen by the state. Within most German federal states, the churches have an entrenched position as advisers on education and, sometimes, broadcasting.

As with formally established churches in some other European countries, such as England and Denmark, Germany’s clerics probably have an instinct which tells them not to exercise their privileges too stridently. Too much assertiveness would be expecially imprudent at a time when the Catholic church, in particular, is reeling from scandal.

In the cathedral city of Regensburg, the local bishop was among those who urged his flock to send messages to legislators in Berlin in support of traditional marriage. But his diocese is more likely to attract attention for another reason: recent revelations that more than 500 boys had suffered physical, emotional or sexual abuse at a famous school which trains young members of a cathederal choir.

In a way, the difference between France and Germany on this score epitomises the dilemma facing Christian leaders across Europe. Is it better to enjoy historically inherited privileges, and practise political self-restraint for fear of exasperating an already rather sceptical public? Or is it more advantageous to be stripped of almost every privilege, as has happened in France, and be freer to speak one’s mind?