(London) Gays and lesbians staged large LGBT pride marches over the weekend in Warsaw, Rome and Athens, three European capitals where their rights are under fire.

Pride had been banned in Warsaw by former mayor Lech Kaczynski who is now Poland’s president. Kaczynski rejected parade applications from 2004 to 2006. 

Despite the ban gay activists marched anyway.

In 2005 dozens of militant youths were waiting as the marchers arrived at the Parliament buildings and pelted the crowd with eggs. Police struggled to try to regain order, but were vastly outnumbered. 

Gays took the mayor to the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that Kaczynski acted illegally and discriminatory in banning gay pride marches.

Nevertheless, the majority of Poles oppose civil rights for gays and lesbians.  A public opinion survey released on the weekend found that more than 60 percent of respondents believe homosexuality is a sickness.

Earlier this year President Kaczynski threatened to veto the European Union’s proposed charter of rights if it were endorsed by Parliament if it contained guarantees of equal rights for gays and lesbians.

Under an agreement worked out with Kaczynski the charter was approved with the LGBT protections dropped.

In Athens gays called for recognition of same-sex relationships.

Last week the government moved to annul the marriages of two same-sex couples and indict the mayor who performed them in a small town. (story)

The LGBT rights group OLKE said earlier this year it had found a loophole in a 26 year old update of the Greek civil marriage law that refers only to participating “persons,” without specifying gender. 

The government recently introduced civil partnership legislation that would grant legal rights to unmarried couples, but the bill specifically excludes same-sex couples.

About 2,000 people marched in the LGBT pride parade in Athens on the weekend, many of them carrying signs that read “Yes to civil marriage”.

In Rome gays and lesbians denounced the new right-of-center government and the Vatican for opposing legislation allowing limited rights for same-sex couples.

Attempts by the former leftists government of Romano Prodi to pass the bill were thwarted by the right. With Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative coalition back in power the legislation is dead.

Prior to the pride parade Rome’s new right of center mayor denounced the event as “an act of sexual exhibition”.