Catholic parishoners pray and support speakers before a march through North Beach in San Francisco on Saturday 3rd April. The parade was to affirm marriage between heterosexuals and they stated that Catholics are for love and tolerance, but not same sex marriage.

Some 1,000 Catholic opponents of gay marriages held a peaceful prayer march on Saturday in San Francisco, criticising the city officials, including the Catholic mayor Gavin Newsom, who have licensed thousands of marriage licenses to gay couples in the past few months.

The crowd began the day with a morning mass at St. Peter and Paul Church, and then marched around several blocks before returning to the church. Many of the marchers held signs with pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Others clutched onto their rosaries as they chanted prayers while marching.

"Marriage is between a man and a woman," said Madeleine Veneklase, 44, of Napa, who is pregnant with her fifth child. "That's how God made us and that's the way to true happiness in a relationship."

San Francisco is where the flood of gay marriage licenses first began to pour out. The city was forced to stop the illegal licensing on March 11, it managed to marry some 4,000 couples since February 12.

The mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, who spearheaded the illegal operation behind closed doors, comes from a conservative Irish Catholic family.

Saturday's rally and march were sponsored by Your Catholic Voice, a nationwide organisation that has roughly 250,000 members.

Meanwhile, in New Paltz, New York, where the delinquent mayor Jason West was charged with some 2-dozen criminal accounts for marrying gay couples, pro-family protestors from Kansas City held a peaceful protest.

The group, from Wesboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, holds similar rallies across the nation.


Pauline J. Chang