Genoa, Italy - A group of gay rights activists in Italy staged Wednesday a protest against the Vatican's refusal to endorse a proposed United Nations resolution calling on governments to de- criminalize homosexuality.

The demonstrators, numbering around 20, unfurled a banner reading "The Vatican is an accomplice in our martyrdom," in front of the offices of the archdiocese of Genoa, the ANSA news agency reported.

The north-western port city is scheduled to host Italy's national Gay Pride celebrations in 2009.

Also Wednesday, Italian Communist daily Liberazione invited protestors to take their grievance directly to the Vatican when the resolution will be tabled in New York, possibly later this month.

Protestors could attend the Pope's traditional Angelus blessing in St Peter's Square "wearing pink, a shirt or something else," in a reference to the colour of the triangle gay people were forced to wear in Nazi death camps during World War II, Liberazione said.

The protests stem from remarks on Monday by the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, that the Holy See would oppose the resolution, which France is due to propose later this month on behalf of the 27-member European Union.

Migliore said its implies the possibility that nations which did not recognize same-sex unions as "matrimony" would face pressure to do so.

Gay rights groups and many commentators in Italy and elsewhere have assailed the Vatican's stance towards a move which they say is intended to safeguard human rights.

Homosexuality is currently punishable by law in more than 85 countries and by death in a number of them, including Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

The Vatican has since moved to quell some of the uproar caused by Migliore's remarks.

Pope Benedict XVI's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said "no one wants the death penalty or jail or fines for homosexuals."

However, he noted the Holy See was not in the minority on the resolution as "fewer than 50" member states of the UN have adhered it while more than 150 have not.

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It also says that sexual intercourse between men and women should only take place within marriage with the objective to procreate. (dpa)