Protests mar opening of Rome’s "Gay street"
BEIJING, Aug. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- "Gay Street" opened Friday in Rome with flags and banners flying and amid protests about a homosexual couple who claimed they were detained by police for kissing near the Colosseum.
Gay rights activists welcomed a 325-yard zone in the center of the city — filled with shops and bars — as an area where gays can "feel at ease," after days of heated debate in predominantly Roman Catholic Italy over the kissing incident.
"This will be an area where people can feel at ease, and it is also meant to be a bridge between the citizens and the homosexual community," activist Fabrizio Marrazzo, the Rome leader of Italy's Arcigay gay rights movement, said Friday.
The two men were detained briefly last week for what the police said were lewd acts in public — a crime that can carry a sentence of up to two years in jail. Police said the two were not just kissing and they would have behaved the same way if it had been a heterosexual couple.
Right-wingers have protested the City Hall's decision to close the area to traffic for three nights a week through Sept. 8.
"Nobody wants to condemn those who practice a different sexuality, but to dedicate a street only to gays and lesbians I think it's a sort of useless and marginalizing project," right wing politician Piergiorgio Benvenuti was quoted as saying by the daily Il Giornale.
Gay rights came into the spotlight in Italy when the government recently proposed a bill aimed at granting legal rights to unmarried and same-sex couples.
The legislation sparked controversy and angered the Vatican, which under Pope Benedict XVI has been conducting a fierce campaign to protect traditional marriage between a man and a woman. The bill requires parliamentary approval.
(Agencies)
猜你喜欢
-
- 04-08正宗英文报纸杂志原文推荐阅读(四、六级难度)6
- 03-082016年考研英语语法指导:一般将来时
- 04-08英语基础语法12.2 短语动词的被动语态
- 04-08antibody的解释含义及用法例句
- 04-08beep的解释含义及用法例句
- 03-082012考研英语辅导翻译难度大分数线不会有大出入
- 04-082004年英语专八考试阅读真题:text E
- 04-08大学英语六级考试阅读理解模拟练习题54(附答案)
- 04-08announcement的解释含义及用法例句
- 04-08词汇不足,四、六级英语作文怎么写?