Catholic World News News Feature
Italian leftists renew commitment to gay rights May 15, 2007
Italian leftist leaders are renewing their commitment to homosexual rights after the stunning success of a Family Day rally on May 12.
Piero Fassino, the president of the Democrats of the Left party (a former Communist group), conceded that at least 500,000 people attended the Family Day event, easily surpassing the organizers' goal of 100,000 participants. However, Fassino said, "We will not step back from recognizing the rights of homosexuals."
"Secularism will not give in" to religious principles, Fassino said. As for the proposal to grant legal recognition to same-sex unions, he said that the principle of equal rights for homosexuals is "a non-negotiable and absolute value."
Fassino said that his party would participate in a Gay Pride event scheduled for June 16. Like the Family Day rally, the Gay Pride demonstration is scheduled to take place in the piazza in front of Rome's cathedral, the basilica of St. John Lateran.
Parliamentarian Alfredo Mantovano of the National Alliance Party, which took part in Family Day, criticized the Gay Pride gathering: “To compare the Family Day to Family Gay means they did not understand the extraordinary event that took place on Saturday," he said.
Social conservative center-left parliamentarian Enzo Carra of the Daisy Party also criticized the Gay Pride event, citing the scandal of a Gay Pride gathering in Rome during the Great Jubilee in 2000.
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