6 months ago
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NEW DELHI: Rome's LGBTQ+ Pride parade marked its
30th anniversary
on Saturday with tens of thousands of attendees. Participants donned brightly coloured outfits, waving banners, dancing, and singing through the Italian capital to celebrate gay rights and humorously criticise
Pope Francis
.
The parade followed a recent incident where Pope Francis issued an apology after Italian media reported that he had used the term "faggotness" during a meeting.
The Pope reportedly used the term to reaffirm the Vatican's ban on allowing gay men to enter seminaries and be ordained priests.
"Attention, from here on high levels of faggotry," read a sign on a large motorcycle ridden by a woman in a rainbow-coloured hat leading the parade.
A man dressed as Pope Francis held a sign stating, "There is too much faggotry in this parade."
Elly Schlein, the leader of
Italy's main opposition party
, participated in the parade, dancing on a float. Schlein is a strong advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, in stark contrast to Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni's Brothers of Italy party opposes marriage equality, same-sex parents adopting children, and surrogate pregnancies. Last year, the far-right government limited recognition of parental rights to the biological parent in same-sex families.
A woman in the parade held a sign saying, "I don't like Meloni, but I like melons and red hair."
Another sign targeted Gen. Roberto Vannacci, a newly elected member of Parliament with the right-wing League party, who was fired by Italy's defense minister for writing a controversial book.
"If according to Vannacci the LGBTQIA+ is a minority ... he has never met the seminarians of Pope Francis," read a sign referencing the general.
(With inputs from agencies)
