VIENNA (AFP) — About 120,000 people in colourful and often scanty dress took part in Vienna's annual Rainbow Parade on Saturday to call for equal rights for gays and lesbians, organisers said.
Thirty-degree heat and sunny weather ensured record attendance for the 13th edition of the march, which like almost all other events this year in Austria had a football theme, even two weeks after the end of Euro 2008.
"No more offsides!" organisers urged, calling for legalised gay marriage and an end to discrimination, although daring high heels, rather than soccer boots, were the choice of footwear on the Ring boulevard where the Fan Mile recently stood.
The event also took on political significance, coming a week after the Austrian government announced early elections in September.
Organiser Christian Hoegl, of the Homosexual Initiative (HOSI) association, noted that a planned gay marriage bill was likely to be shelved until a new government could be formed.
But political parties were keen to show their colours on Saturday, with the Social Democrats raising two rainbow flags along the parade route in front of parliament, for the first time, and the opposition Greens joining the march.
On Friday, a local conservative councillor had also posed, wrapped in a rainbow flag, to show that gay rights did not clash with her party's traditional family image.
Street cleaners in their traditional orange lent their own colour to Saturday's event, following the march with the words "Make love, not waste."
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