By Hilary White
ROME, May 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Italian homosexual leaders are accusing Riccardo Di Segni, Rome’s chief rabbi of “racism” for his stand defending the traditional family. Di Segni was speaking against proposed legislation that would create de facto civil unions for homosexual partners and cohabiting persons with equivalent rights to natural marriage.
De Segni spoke out against the “strange silence” of Jewish leaders “on this hotly debated issue,’ in an article to appear in the Jewish monthly Shalom.
The ANSA news agency quotes Di Segni: “Society is about to make a decision which, according to our traditions, abundantly exceeds permitted limits and it is our duty to oppose these decisions and not remain indifferent.”
Franco Grillini, a homosexual MP accused Rabbi Di Segni of “unacceptable anti-homosexual racism.” Grillini is honorary chairman of top Italian gay rights’ association Arcigay that is campaigning for the bill.
In the meantime, a Family Day demonstration is planned for Rome this Saturday in the Piazza of St. John Lateran. Organizers hope to draw between half a million and a million supporters of the family. The Roman daily newspaper, Il Messaggero, reported that the lay group Communion and Liberation has asked all its members in Rome to open their homes to Italians coming from other parts of the peninsula for the rally.
The rabbi is not the only religious leader to come under fire from homosexual activists in favour of civil unions. Last week Pope Benedict XVI expressed his solidarity with president of the Italian Bishops Conference, Angelo Bagnasco, who is under police protection after threats appeared scrawled on the walls of Genoa Cathedral. The archbishop received an anonymous envelope through the mail containing a bullet and a picture of the archbishop with a swastika carved into it.
Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, writing on behalf of the Pope said the Pontiff urges the prelate to “continue in his work for the common good, defending and promoting those human and religious values without which it is impossible to build true, free and stable democracies”.
Pope and Italian President Give Public Backing to Bishop Threatened over Opposition to Homosexuality
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