Rome.- Rome’s LGBTQ+ Pride parade celebrated its 30th anniversary on Saturday. Tens of thousands of people, wearing multicolored outfits, paraded through the Italian capital waving banners, dancing and singing in defense of gay rights and mocking Pope Francis.
Many of the posters and banners in the parade mocked a recent comment by the Pontiff.
The pope had to apologize last month after Italian news media quoted unnamed bishops as saying Francis had jokingly used the term “faggot” when speaking in Italian during a meeting. He had used the term when reaffirming the Vatican’s ban on allowing homosexuals to enter seminaries and be ordained priests.
Francis apparently repeated the word a second time in a meeting with priests in Rome this week.
“Attention, high levels of faggot from here on,” read a sign on a motorcycle driven by a woman with a rainbow-colored hat at the front of the parade.
A man dressed as Francisco held a sign that read “there is too much faggot in this parade.”
The leader of Italy’s main opposition party, Elly Schlein, danced on a float in the center of the parade. She is a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, with very different views than Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The program of Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party declares itself against marriage equality, homosexual parents adopting children and surrogacy. Last year, his far-right government limited the recognition of parental authority to the biological father only in families with parents of the same sex.
A woman held a sign that read: “I don’t like Meloni, but I like melons and red hair.”
Another poster mocked General Roberto Vannacci, recently elected European Party deputy with the right-wing Lega party. Vannacci was fired by the Italian Defense Minister after writing a book considered offensive to women, homosexuals and black people.
“If according to Vannacci the LGBTQIA+ are a minority… he has never met Pope Francis’ seminarians.”
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