ITALY: Gay Pride carnival marches through central Rome

Record ID: 277180

  • Title: ITALY: Gay Pride carnival marches through central Rome
  • Date: 17th June 2007
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Italian)GAY PRIDE PARTICIPANT SERGIO ROSSI, SAYING: "This is our response to the 'Family Day', we deserve the same rights as families, we are real families."
  • Embargoed: 2nd July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: People
  • Reuters ID: LVA54JY4E5F9LNUNOPREV149SKL9
  • Story Text: A huge crowd gathered for the annual Gay Pride in Rome, asking for greater rights for gay, lesbian and transsexual couples. A million people gathered in central Rome on Saturday (June 16) for the annual Gay Pride carnival, according to the organisers.
    This year, amidst the usual exotic costumes and brightly coloured floats, were posters and banners reclaiming a legislation for Italy allowing unwed gay and also heterosexual couples to have the same rights as the legally married.
    Italy's center-left government led by Prime Minister Romano Prodi announced months ago that a law giving civil rights to unwed couples would have been introduced in Italian legislation.
    The center-right opposition, as well as the Vatican and members of the government itself immediately opposed to the law, refusing to allow greater rights to unwed couples and homosexuals.
    Catholics group staged in May a rally outside rome St John in Lateran called 'Family day', where hundreds of thousands of people gathered to defend the traditional family as the basis of Italian society. 'This is our response to the 'Family Day', we deserve the same rights as families, we are real families', said Gay Pride participant Sergio Rossi.
    'It is important to reaffirm all those rights everybody deserve', said a transvestite dressed as the statute of Liberty.
    The annual Gay Pride marched through Rome, next to the Colosseum and ending in the very same square of the 'Family day' rally, outside Rome's ancient Basilica.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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