Legions march in Rome.(World Pride 2000 march in support of rights for gay Catholics)

[John-Michael Savoca] and Brawley, whose activism reaches all the way back to the first stirrings of the modem gay rights movement in the 1969 Stonewall protests in New York, sensed something unspoken at work. The crowd in Rome was "overwhelmingly Catholic," Savoca said, and hence the gathering had a "consciousness-raising purpose" for the church. "People were standing up and being counted because they want the Vatican to recognize them, to look and see what's going on," Brawley said.