Last week, the council announced the march’s date had changed from 7 November to 21 November because all outdoor public events except those relating to the papal visit are now banned for the period 6-13 November.
“This proposal has one objective – to allow the march to take place and the government of Buenos Aires to accompany it with the resources necessary to guarantee a safe, ordered and celebratory event as has occurred in the past,” said the council in a statement.
The organising commission for Pride said in a letter to the leader of the city council that it understood “the institutional relevance of the visit of a head of state and the supreme representative of the Catholic Church as well as the complexity of security operations”.
But it added that it did not believe this was enough of an argument to suspend the march, given that the Pope will arrive in the Argentinian capital on 8 November, the day after the Pride march.
It said the march would go ahead as planned on the 7 November because thousands of people had already booked travel to Buenos Aires for the event and reserved accommodation.
“Changing the date does not mean moving an activity on the agenda. It means altering the organisation of things that have already rolled out at a federal level [and of] commitments accepted months ago and the decisions made by thousands of people so they can take part,” the commission added.
The annual Pride march has taken place in Argentina on the first Saturday of November since 1997 to commemorate the foundation of Argentina’s first LGBT group, Nuestro Mundo.
The commission noted that the request to reschedule the march came from the governing council of Buenos Aires. It had not received any express request from the national government nor the Vatican.