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"Gay" Activists Disrupt Palm Sunday Procession at England's Most Important Cathedral

LONDON, April 6, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A confrontation between homosexual activists and high-ranking Catholic clergy was staged on Palm Sunday at London's Westminster Cathedral. Homosexual activists from what media are calling a "gay human rights group", "OutRage!" protested in front of the primatial church of English Catholics and disrupted the annual Palm Sunday procession. Activists were shouting and waving placards which read, "Vatican blocks gay human rights at UN", "Catholics! Stop crucifying queers!", and "Gays are not 'intrinsically disordered' - Shame on Catholic Catechism!". The feast of Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the most holy season of the Catholic year, Holy Week, in which the last actions of the life of Christ are commemorated.

Peter Tatchell, the group's spokesman accused the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, of hypocrisy in the sexual abuse crisis. He said in a confrontation with the Cardinal on the cathedral steps, "Your church protects paedophile priests, while persecuting gay people in loving relationships. You support legal discrimination against gay people and oppose gay equality and human rights".

In a press release, the group accused the Catholic Church of a list of offenses including, "The Catholic Catechism denounces gay relationships as 'debased', 'disordered' and a 'grave depravity'."

A spokesman for Westminster Cathedral said that the activists were blocking the door to the cathedral and had seriously upset many of those in attendance with abusive language. "A lot of people were extremely upset by what happened, including quite a number who were reduced to tears," he said. "It's very regrettable that the protesters were preventing people from entering the cathedral to celebrate Mass. They blocked the entrance and there was no way in other than through them."

This is only one in a long string of similar events at Catholic churches where homosexual activists and supporters have disrupted services and events. On March 29th, LifeSiteNews.com reported on an incident in a Catholic church in Canton, Massachusetts where a writer for a dissident "Catholic" publication staged a confrontation to denounce the Church's stand on homosexual partnerships. In February, 2003, a Washington D.C. judge apologized, on behalf of the Catholic Church, to homosexual activists for a church's refusal to give them Communion when they had been arrested for disrupting a meeting of the US conference of Catholic bishops.

London police arrived on the scene at Westminster Cathedral but missed the incident.

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