NICOSIA – After a two-year break during the COVID-19 pandemic that brought lockdowns and slowdowns, the annual LGBTI parade is returning with a call to allow marriage for all.

The Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Intersex community on the island said the event will take place Sept. 25 to also be a show for legislation to enable full marriage equality, said The Cyprus Mail.

The group said that LGBTQIA+ (which includes queer and asexual) community can be legally married in 31 countries but not on Cyprus, where homosexuality was decriminalized only in 1998.

Civil partnership was adopted in 2015, which also includes same-sex couples but they can’t adopt children if they even have a civil cohabitation similar to the rights of marriage.

“This year we are raising our pride flags even higher in what is predicted to be an even more massive and dynamic march,” Accept LGBTI said.

“We will walk together again…for a better world, without exclusion, will walk together again to claim equal rights for all LGBT+ people in our country, but also for the right of every human being to live and express themselves freely,” a group statement said.

“Together we will be able to restart the progress for LGBTQ+ equality and equality in Cyprus and remind the state and society that the LGBTQ+ community is here but its problems remain unsolved,” the group added.

“The LGBTQ+ community should not remain in quarantine either because of a pandemic or because of the state or any of us,” the announcement added, the report added.