Gay Street Opens in Rome*

By MARTA FALCONI
The Associated Press
Friday, August 3, 2007; 1:44 PM

ROME -- Rome marked the opening of its first "Gay Street" with flags,
banners and protests amid a row over a homosexual couple who claimed
they were detained by police for kissing near the Colosseum.

Campaigners welcomed a 325-yard zone in the center of the city _ filled
with shops and bars _ as an area where gays can "feel at ease," after
days of heated debate in predominantly Roman Catholic Italy over the
kissing incident.

The two men were detained briefly last week for what the police said
were lewd acts in public _ a crime that can carry a sentence of up to
two years in jail.

"This will be an area where people can feel at ease, and it is also
meant to be a bridge between the citizens and the homosexual community,"
activist Fabrizio Marrazzo, the Rome leader of Italy's Arcigay gay
rights movement, said Friday.

Police said the two were not just kissing and would have behaved the
same way if it had been a heterosexual couple.

Right-wingers have protested the City Hall's decision to close the area
to traffic for three nights a week through Sept. 8.

"Nobody wants to condemn those who practice a different sexuality, but
to dedicate a street only to gays and lesbians I think it's a sort of
useless and marginalizing project," right wing politician Piergiorgio
Benvenuti was quoted as saying by the daily Il Giornale.

Gay rights came into the spotlight in Italy when the government recently
proposed a bill aimed at granting legal rights to unmarried and same-sex
couples.

The legislation sparked controversy and angered the Vatican, which under
Pope Benedict XVI has been conducting a fierce campaign to protect
traditional marriage between a man and a woman. The bill requires
parliamentary approval.