ROME (AP)

Italian gay rights groups said Saturday they would hold public “kiss-ins” near the Colosseum next week to protest the detention of two men for expressing affection in front of the famous monument.

The men have said they were only kissing, but police maintain they committed “lewd acts.” Gay rights groups have accused the police of discrimination and some lawmakers promised to raise the incident in parliament.

The Carabinieri paramilitary police confirmed the two men were held for about 40 minutes early Friday and released after being accused of committing lewd acts in public - a crime that can carry a sentence of up to 2 years in jail.

The two were “not just kissing” and the officers would have detained a heterosexual couple engaged in the same act, said Carabinieri official Col. Alessandro Casarsa.

“They acted because there was a couple that was committing a lewd act in front of one of the most-viewed monuments in Italy,” Casarsa said without elaborating. “We apply the law to all in the same way, men and women.”

Homosexuality has been gaining wider acceptance in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, especially in large urban centers. Recently, rights groups have been pressing Italian politicians to pass a proposed bill that would grant some legal rights to unmarried heterosexual and same-sex couples.

Arcigay, the main Italian gay rights group, hired a lawyer for the couple and identified the men as Roberto L. and Michele M., saying that the two, aged 27 and 28, had only shared a gesture of affection after a night out in the gay bars that line one of the streets near the Colosseum.

“Roberto and Michele were only kissing; all other statements are false,” the group said .

Arcigay said it would hold its protest near the Colosseum on Thursday, while another group, the Mario Mieli Club, scheduled a rally of public kissing in front of the 2,000-year-old arena for Sunday night.

Vladimir Luxuria, a Communist politician and Italy’s first transvestite lawmaker, is one of the representatives who said they would call on the government to explain the incident in parliament.

“It’s worrying that a gesture of affection is considered a crime,” Luxuria told La Repubblica daily. “It’s absurd that two young people who love each other should spend the night in a police station without having done anything obscene.”

The detention came the same day that Italy’s highest criminal court said that homosexuals who migrate clandestinely to Italy should not be deported if they would face persecution at home, news reports said.

Italian dailies reported that the Court of Cassation, ruling on the expulsion order for a Senegalese immigrant, did not allow the man to stay but ordered a judge to re-examine his case to check his claim that he would be persecuted.

Sphere: Related Content