Charles and Camilla day not gay, Tatchell demonstrates
-11/04/05
The marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles was greeted with general goodwill and muted public enthusiasm when it finally took place, a day late due to the Popeís funeral. But not everyone was welcome in Windsor for the glitzy occasion.
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, a leading member of the lesbian and gay protest group OutRage!, was prevented by police from putting up his own placard alongside those of well-wishers in Windsor.
The placard read: ìCharles can marry twice but gays canít marry once.î Apparently the police regarded this as a sentiment likely to cause a ëbreach of the peaceí among seething royalists, and Mr Tatchell was moved on.
Although the event was handled courteously, Republicans were quick to point out that it rather graphically illustrated the weakness of the idea that the Monarchy helps to protect free speech and human rights.
Peter Tatchell is known for his daring protests against the exclusion and brutal treatment of lesbian and gay people around the world. He once controversially interrupted the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, in the middle of an Easter sermon ñ a move which many gay Christians regarded as counter-productive.
Tatchell was also badly injured a few years ago for seeking to make a citizenís arrest of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, who has called gay people ìanimalsî and whose authorities imprison and assault them.
The other protests at the wedding of Charles and Camilla were made by three objectors whose petitions to have the event stopped were rejected again on the morning of the event by Windsor registrar Dennis Roberts.
These included an objection, refused by the High Court, from maverick Anglican priest Fr Paul Williamson from Feltham. He arrived at the civic office to claim that the Queen had broken her Coronation oath to uphold the doctrine of the Church of England by consenting to the wedding of two divorcees outside the Church.