Gay speakers headline anti-Pope march & rally
Saturday 18 September 2010
Assemble 1.30pm Hyde Park Corner, London W1K 1QZ (by the start of Piccadilly)
March to Downing Street for a rally at 3.30pm
This Saturday’s Protest the Pope march and rally will condemn the Pope’s opposition to gay equality and his claim that all gay people posses a tendency towards “evil.”
Many of the leading speakers at the rally are gay, including Catholic priest Father Bernard Lynch, President of the National Secular Society Terry Sanderson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association Andrew Copson and LGBT human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
Other (non-gay) speakers include Richard Dawkins, science writer Ben Goldacre, sex abuse survivor Sue Cox, Iranian secularist Maryam Namazie and Asian feminist campaigner Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters.
Protest the Pope co-organiser Peter Tatchell said:
“In 1986 and 1992, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope authored a Vatican document that condemned homosexuality as an ‘objective disorder’ and a strong tendency towards ‘an intrinsic moral evil.’ Rejecting the concept of gay human rights, the document asserted that there is no ‘right’ to laws protecting homosexual people against discrimination; suggesting that the civil liberties of lesbians and gay men can be ‘legitimately limited for objectively disordered external conduct.’ He said discrimination against LGBT people was justified in professions such as teaching, youth work and the military.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Some+considerations+concerning+the+Catholic+response+to+legislative…-a0128671084
“The Pope has attacked same-sex marriages as ‘evil’ and vilified supporters of gay equality as ‘gravely immoral.’ He has also denounced homosexual equality as a ‘deviant trend’ and condemned same-sex love as being ‘without any social value.’ He even threatened to deny mass and excommunicate Catholic legislators who voted for gay rights laws,” said Mr Tatchell.
Details of the Protest the Pope march and rally on 18 September:
http://www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/2010/07/march-and-rally-main-event-for-the-protest-the-pope-campaign/
Info about other Protest the Pope events:
http://www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/category/events/upcoming/