ROME (AFP) — Tens of thousands took to the streets of Athens, Rome and Warsaw for Gay Pride parades Saturday, drawing attention to the fact that many homosexuals in Europe still do not enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals.
"We have even more reasons to be here today than in previous years," Vladimir Luxuria -- an Italian transvestite and former left-wing deputy -- said in Rome, where tens of thousands took part in the parade.
Rome's parade sparked particular contraversy this year as new mayor Gianni Alemanno in May denounced the event as "an act of sexual exhibition" and vowed to make sure the demonstration would not offend anybody.
At the national level, the political climate does not look any more promising for gay rights in Italy as new Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition shares close ties with the Vatican.
"With the right in power, Gay Pride is becoming a demonstration for freedom and against authoritarianism," said Franco Grillini, also an ex-deputy from the left and founder of the homosexual rights group Arcigay.
In Warsaw, some 2,000 people paraded through the streets, as an opinion poll showed that deeply Catholic Poland is largely hostile to homosexuality.
Police were out in force to prevent feared attacks by extreme-right groups as a procession of floats passed through the capital's main avenues to the sound of dance music.
A poll by the CBOS institute published Saturday confirmed that homosexuals are generally viewed in Poland as being perverted, sick or at best sinners. Of the 1,116 adults questioned, 69 percent believed gays should keep silent about their sexuality.
Poland was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights after a ban on a gay pride march in Warsaw in 2005 by the then mayor, Lech Kaczynski, now the country's president.
Kaczynski, a conservative Catholic, had likewise forbidden the parade in 2004, but the 2006 and 2007 events went ahead, despite repeated calls for a ban from conservatives and far-right Catholic groups.
In Athens however, the mood was more uplifting as some 2,000 gays and lesbians took to the streets only four days after the country's first same-sex marriages.
One of the newlyweds, 47-year-old Evangelia Vlami, head of the Greek Union of Homosexuals and Lesbians (Olke), rode at the head of the parade that drew twice as many participants this year as in previous years.
Demonstrators wore banners with "Say yes to me", "Yes to political marriage".
On Tuesday, the socialist mayor of the small island of Tilos in the southeast Aegean Sea took advantage of a legal loophole and married two couples, one of women and one of men.
A judge in Rhodes, on which Tilos depends, immediately asked the mayor to annul the marriages and launched a preliminary investigation into a possible case against the elected official for breach of office.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
