Annual Pride rally sparks protest in Romania capital

Bucharest hosted its annual Pride parade on Saturday as thousands of marchers filled the city's streets carrying rainbow flags.

"We celebrate love, love for the planet and love for everybody," said Denis Blidariu, a coordinator with Greenpeace Romania as he prepared for the march.

Banners being shown in the parade read, among others, "Stand together, love together," and "No pride in war, no pride in nations."

A counter-march was organised by far-right and Orthodox groups to protest again same-sex partnership, marriage and adoption, as well as sexual education in schools.

They chanted and carried banners with anti-gay slogans, and one protester wrongly referred to homosexuality as a disease.

"We are here as an antidote to the disease that infects the world and the madness created by a lack of morality," said protester Frunză Laurențiu.

The last person jailed for being gay in Romania walked free in 1998.

Romania only decriminalized homosexuality three years after that, in 2001, as it reformed its laws to qualify for membership in the European Union.

Yet many members of the country's LGBT community remain frustrated by the country's failure so far to go further and pass laws that would legalize same-sex unions or marriage.

There are also fears of a conservative backlash to the gains achieved so far by LGBT people, as some in Romania, influenced by the Orthodox church, reject the growing acceptance of sexual minorities, something seen particularly among Romanian youth.