http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4106890.stm

Spaniards to stage anti-gay rally

Thousands of people are expected to take to the streets of Madrid to protests against government moves to legalise gay marriage.
The protests will be led by Roman Catholic bishops and members of the conservative opposition Popular Party.

Over 500 buses have been laid on to ferry people to Madrid, along with special flights from the Canary Islands and Spanish areas in Morocco.

In April the lower house voted for gay couples to marry and adopt children.

Sweeping changes

The Vatican condemned the bill, which if also passed by the Spanish Senate, will make Spain the first European country to allow homosexuals to marry and to adopt children.

The head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council on the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, denounced the legislation as profoundly iniquitous.

When Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero took office over a year ago, he made it clear he intended to remove what he called the Church's undeniable advantages and make Spain a secular state.

Mr Zapatero has indicated that he also intends to streamline divorce law and even to relax the conditions placed on abortion.

Resistance

Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Spaniards support the gay marriage and adoption bill.

However, the move has met resistance in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation, with several Spanish mayors saying that they will refuse to marry same sex couples if the bill becomes law.

The march, due to begin at 1800 (1600 GMT), is being organised by the Spanish Forum for the Family (FEF), a lay Catholic group, whose slogan for the march is "The family is important. For the right to have a mother and father. For liberty".

They estimate that about 500,000 people will join the demonstration.

Gay and lesbian groups are staging their own counter protest a short distance from the march to voice their support for the bill.

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I just can't believe it. I thought there would be next to no people and what am I seeing on TV? Lots and lots of people! They've sold it as the "family gathering" but I'm extremely sceptical that anyone actually took it as such. I have the helicopter flying on top of my house all afternoon.

Why oh why don't people "live and let live"? These things make me feel so ashamed

We have three rallies in Madrid right now in an area of say 5 km. One's this one, the other's the counter-rally to this one and then there's Carlinhos Brown playing in the streets too. Crazy! I wonder what would happen if the three got together at some point :P