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'One of the most viciously homophobic world leaders' will face opposition
Pope Benedict
Pope's 2010 visit to UK to be targeted by gay humanist group
The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) is planning to protest during Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK early next year.
GALHA also intends to demonstrate outside the Labour party conference in Brighton next week in protest at Gordon Brown's invitation to the Pope, which includes a formal reception at Buckingham Palace and meetings at Downing Street with other officials and dignitaries.
The GALHA website lists its objections to the present Pope's position on a number of issues, which are: resistance to the distribution of condoms as a means of reducing the spread of AIDS, opposition to all forms of effective birth control, denial of even the most vulnerable women the right to a legal abortion, relentless opposition to gay rights, support for maintaining segregated education for Catholics and other religious groups, and failure to adequately address and make amends for the abuse committed by Catholic priests around the world.
GAHLA secretary David Christmas said: "As a European citizen and leader of a religious group with a significant following in the UK, the Pope is of course welcome to visit Britain, provided that he obeys our laws. However, the idea that he should be lauded as some kind of hero is a direct insult to all of those people whose lives have been blighted by his extreme doctrinal positions."
George Broadhead, secretary of the Pink Triangle Trust, a charity affiliated with GALHA, said: "This Pope has shown himself to be paranoid about homosexuality. His opposition to LGBT rights knows no bounds. In his Christmas message last year he declared that saving humanity from homosexual behaviour was as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.
"This must be the most outrageous and bizarre claim yet made by someone who has already got a well-deserved reputation as one of the most viciously homophobic world leaders on a par with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe."
