June 5, 2000

Vatican at odds with gay event
___VATICAN CITY--Despite horror in the Vatican and hesitation in City Hall, gay rights activists intend to go ahead with a World Gay Pride festival this summer amid Holy Year celebrations.
___The event, scheduled for July 1 to 9, has stirred debate over human and civil rights and just how separate the Italian state is from the Roman Catholic Church. It also has landed both Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and Mayor Francesco Rutelli in political hot water.
___"Gay Pride? Not now and not in Rome," declared Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the archbishop of Rome.
___But organizers of the festival said they already have rerouted their parade to stay clear of Holy Year pilgrims and have moved the festival back one week so as not to interfere with Rome's celebration of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
___The pope, like his predecessors, holds that to be a homosexual or lesbian is not a sin but to perform a homosexual or lesbian act is.

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