Barcelona Gay And Lesbian Monument Plans Outlined

Taking a page from Amsterdam's famed Homomonument, the city of Barcelona will erect a monument in honor of the city's gays, lesbians and transgendered people who have "suffered persecution and repression throughout history," the AFP is reporting.

Scheduled to be unveiled in February, the new monument will be pink and triangular in shape, much like its Dutch counterpart. Though the monument's location has yet to be announced, a spokesman for Barcelona's city hall confirmed the square directly in front of Gaudi's iconic Sagrada Familia basilica "is one location that has been proposed." The square was also the site of a mass "kiss-in" demonstration staged in protest of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the city in Barcelona and the Roman Catholic Church's conservative stance on homosexuality.

According to the Advocate, the pope was included as part of a Sunday telecast in Spain, having conveyed his blessing at a "family values" mass conducted in Madrid by Archbishop Antonio Rouco Varela, outlining Catholic opposition to liberal policies enacted by Spain's current government, including marriage equality. "Whenever the true worth of matrimony and family values is questioned, negative consequences come forward rapidly," Rouco Varela is quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

Comments

[dmherb]

12:17 AM on 01/10/2011

This sounds FABULOUS!

[Rahm11219]

10:43 AM on 01/04/2011

...and the world continues to move forward while the US moves backwards.

[Ioan Lightoller]

02:01 PM on 01/14/2011

Not even in the same league, carnitine. Thank you for once again injecting bigotry and ignorance into a sensible conversation.

[Rahm11219]

10:41 AM on 01/04/2011

HuffPo, that picture is absolutely absurd. You should really be ashamed. It has absolutely nothign to do with the story at hand. Pathetic.

[Coloradem]

05:51 PM on 01/04/2011

Agree wholeheartedly. Huffpo is usually much appropriate when selecting photos to accompany LGBT related stories....someone seriously dropped the ball on this one (perhaps the person's most recent employer was Fox News?)...

[Bonnie Brill]

01:15 PM on 01/05/2011

Faux News "unfair/unbalanced" - Always right yet never right...

Standing up (ok, sitting down) for our rights!

[chaya]

03:28 PM on 02/06/2011

Exactly. Why no artist rendition of the monument? Or just a rainbow? Or two people holding hands?

I'm not always sure I understand Arianna Huffington's motivations.

[JoeTroll]

09:13 AM on 01/04/2011

If we play our cards right, maybe we can use this to get rid of the Phelpses for good.

[Donald Locke]

08:21 AM on 01/04/2011

hehehe...he said erect

[artist-53]

07:25 AM on 01/04/2011

"....outlining Catholic opposition to liberal policies enacted by Spain's current government, including marriage equality."

The Pope, Vatican and many Catholic Priests according to my estimates, are in no position to define "Family Values"

And anyone who feels that the Pope carries a lot of weight is living in a self made bubble of denial.

The Pope is not infallible

[Tails]

04:42 AM on 01/04/2011

When will Faux declare it's too close to GroundZero?

[cliffhammond]

02:20 AM on 01/04/2011

Why do so many give their power to the Church? Submit themselves to the Church's "authority"? We don't need the Pope's permission to live and be happy. To live in a moral way free from the dictates of a dinosaur of the Dark Ages. The Church is a relic, a museum. It's no longer socially relevant in our age, our Zeitgeist; at least in the 1st World. Stop submitting your lives to them as if they had any real authority. Scribes and Pharisees belong to history, to an age long past.

[Ioan Lightoller]

02:04 PM on 01/14/2011

This is exactly why I am no longer Catholic--not even Christian. I am Pagan and need no one's permission to live my life and be happy. I wish more GLBT Catholics would realise there are alternatives out there.

[chaya]

03:31 PM on 02/06/2011

I'm Jewish, but I have Christian gay friends who "know" they're going to "Hell," but refuse to change their beliefs.

I confess I don't understand it.

Our beliefs can imprison us--yet we are not their prisoners.

[fishnetdiver]

01:35 AM on 01/04/2011

"...the new monument will be pink and triangular in shape..."
I've always found it rather inspirational that the LGBT community has been able to take a symbol that was designed in 1930s Germany as a mark of being a sub-human and turn it into a symbol of brother/sister/otherhood.
! VIVA LA DIFERENCIA !

[European1919]

08:21 AM on 01/24/2011

Yup. A bit like the christians using the cross their "saviour" was put to death on as their symbol.

[chaya]

03:34 PM on 02/06/2011

I have to say I find the triangle discomfiting--for that reason.

As a monument to the persecution of gays throughout history, though, I think it is quite relevant.

[cliffhammond]

02:15 AM on 01/04/2011

Isn't that happening anyway? The IMF and World Bank own Spain. They will give no quarter.

[Rahm11219]

10:42 AM on 01/04/2011

And thanks for that useless comment... it has absolutely nothing to do with gays.

[Ioan Lightoller]

02:05 PM on 01/14/2011

I don't think so, homohater. Spain is doing fine when it comes to human rights. Or are you the only one to deserve full civil rights?

[synergie]

12:36 AM on 01/04/2011

Where shall Spain be erecting it's monument towards women? This is a much larger population that has been persecuted and repressed throughout history as well. I mean if we're going to be erecting statues in a time of global economic problems, diverting funds from other works of the government, perhaps we should dedicate one to those who've suffered the most and for the longest time in Spanish society over the ages?

[chatoyant vermilion]

01:32 AM on 01/04/2011

Great idea. Not that there's anything wrong with putting up this statue.

[cliffhammond]

02:23 AM on 01/04/2011

I've heard many say that gay people will achieve social equality only when women achieve social equality.

[PerfumeisToxic]

03:14 AM on 01/04/2011

Hatred of gay people is absolutely based on hatred of women.

Haters hate gay men because that see them as men who are like women, and they hate gay women because they see them as uppity women who don't know their place. They hate to see "female" given a place in society, and want to keep men brutal and women silenced.

[canadapaul]

02:42 AM on 01/29/2011

Not with women like Sara Palin & Michelle Bachman

[SiberianRat]

12:11 AM on 01/04/2011

Spain has really opened up--quite impressive. I visited there only once about 20 years ago, and it seems to be more liberal and open than then. I'll have to get back there sometime--I enjoyed it back then too. I was a little skeptical about how such a monument would look, but the one in Amsterdam is really quite nicely done.

[chatoyant vermilion]

01:35 AM on 01/04/2011

I like it that so many Spaniards have decided they're not interested in the Catholic Church's atavistic opinions on this.

[wolfdogNM]

05:32 AM on 01/04/2011

Indeed, they have come a long way.

[joeyfoto]

09:22 AM on 01/04/2011

chayoyant vermilion wrote: "I like it that so many Spaniards have decided they're not interested in the Catholic Church's atavistic opinions on this."

It's amazing how a brutal Civil War followed by 39 years of mind-numbing, Roman Catholic repression and failed Fascist regulation will turn a people against their oppressors.

[Solemar]

11:11 PM on 01/03/2011

That's the way. Spain is the best.

[wolfiegirl]

10:20 PM on 01/03/2011

Spain leaps forward in human rights.... and here in the U.S. the government is helping build a giant Noah's Ark replica.

[Solemar]

11:12 PM on 01/03/2011

LOL. That is really funny.

[consequenceofsounds]

11:40 PM on 01/03/2011

Going backwards is what us good ol' Americans do best these days.

[Ioan Lightoller]

02:08 PM on 01/14/2011

Fanned and faved. A BIG 10-4 Amen to THAT.

[booboo111]

10:03 PM on 01/03/2011

It's nice to see, in light of their economic turmoil, that this would take center stage. Hermaphrodites are feeling a little left out, tho.

[cliffhammond]

02:36 AM on 01/04/2011

Not a multitasker, eh?