ABSTRACT
Catholic-inspired groups in Europe protest against laws that allow same-sex unions and adoptions for homosexual couples. They create hypermediated religious spaces against gender theory, considered as a conspiracy against traditional family values; groups that oppose it often show anxieties for religious privatization and growing secularism. This chapter talks about anti-gender groups that represent a form of lay Christian militancy and show the inner heterogeneity of the Catholic Church. The group La Manif Pour Tous (LMPT, Demo for Everybody) started organizing marches in France in 2012. The chapter talks about LMPT to describe an anti-LGBTQ engagement that is connected to spirituality and Christian values. The group Veilleurs Debout/Sentinelle in Piedi (Standing Watchmen), prominent in Italy, criticizes gay marriage by organizing protests where members stand in silence and read a book, symbolically charging public squares with religious meanings and resisting the speed of modernity. The chapter analyzes this group’s critique of mainstream media and its use of digital spaces, as well as its negotiation of religious authority beside that of Pope Francis. These movements elicit religious changes as they indirectly criticize the notion of Catholic secularism, advocating for a more prominent public role of the Vatican.
