LONDON, July 3,  2006  –  Papal homophobia was mocked by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell at Saturday’s EuroPride parade in London.  Tatchell marched with a placard depicting the Pope as a drag queen, with the caption:  “Pope ‘Betty’ Benedict XVI – Queen of Homophobia.”

■ Peter Tatchell with his 'Papal placard'

And today, Peter Tatchell of the LGBT rights group, OutRage!, spoke about his highly visible ‘one person’ visual statement that attracted the press and news agency photographers.

“The Pope talks like a gay man, walks like a gay man and dresses like a gay man. Some people might conclude he is a gay man,” he said

“If the Pope is gay, his hypocrisy is breath-taking.  Why is he constantly bashing the gay community if he is gay?  Is he using homophobia to deflect rumours about his own sexuality?”

“Benedict XVI has previously authorised Vatican statements condemning gay love as a ‘grave depravity,’ ‘debased’, ‘a tendency towards an intrinsic moral evil,’ ‘objectively disordered’ and ‘contrary to natural law.’

“The Pope has attacked gay marriages as ‘evil’ and vilified supporters of gay equality as ‘gravely immoral’,” Mr. Tatchell continued.  “He also denounced homosexual equality as a ‘deviant trend’ and condemned same-sex relationships as being ‘without any social value.’

“Although he claims to have been a unwilling participant in the Hitler Youth, the Pope’s anti-gay tirades echo the homophobic hate language of Nazism,” he pointed out.

“The Pope has defended discriminatory anti-gay laws, such as bans on same-sex marriage and on the fostering of children by gay couples.

“The Vatican has helped block several UN votes which would have condemned homophobic discrimination and the imprisonment, torture, murder of gay people,” Mr Tatchell concluded.

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