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Activists staged a kissing protest yesterday as the Pope attacked laws allowing gay marriage, fast-track divorces and easier abortions.

About 200 gays and lesbians kissed as Benedict XVI was driven past to Barcelona's Sagrada Familia church for a dedication.

The Pope, who has already criticised the Spanish government's liberal policies, praised family values in his homily.

He railed against divorce and same-sex marriage, saying families were built on the "indissoluble love of a man and a woman".

On abortion, he said: "The lives of children must be defended as sacred."

Some 500 feminists later demonstrated over women's low status in the church and its anti-birth control stance.