Tens of thousands Saturday staged the Gay Pride parade in Rome, urging the Italian government to fast-track plans to grant homosexual couples legal status and override Vatican objections.The raucous and colourful crowd marched under a baking sun from Rome's Saint Paul's Gate to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, the official ecclesiastical seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, where anti-gay protestors had staged a giant rally last month.
The marchers held up banners screaming: "For a more European Italy," "Rights for All," and "Equality, Dignity and Secularism," as they called upon Prime Minister Romano Prodi to speed up plans to recognise gay unions.
Prodi's government proposed allowing civil unions, called DICO in Italy, in February. The planned law, which would also give unmarried heterosexual couples more rights, has met with strong opposition from conservatives and centre-left Catholics in parliament.
Pope Benedict XVI has recently spoken out against hedonism and the "worrying disorientation" of society, with marriage and the family under attack.(Source france 24)
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