Photo of the Day (Updated)

So the Pope is visiting the United Kingdom these days. And the visit has been mired in a lot of controversy. Firstly because one his close aides, Cardinal Walter Kasper, pulled out of the visit after remarking that the UK resembled a "third world country." The Vatican dug itself further into a hole by claiming that, rather than an example of racism, his comments were merely highlighting the UK's "multi-ethnic make-up." It claimed the remarks were meant to hold up new pluralistic British society as a role model. Yeah, right. That's what everyone means when they talk about the Third World countries, right?

Then, the Vatican also berated the "aggressive atheism" prevalent in the UK and, to much outrage, the Pope likened atheists to Nazis in his first address in Scotland... which is sort of ironic since Pope Benedict himself was once part of the Hitler Youth (though apparently through compulsion) and the Nazis thought of themselves as advocating Positive Christianity, which melded traditional Christian beliefs with anti-Semitism and ideas of racial purity.

And of course there were the usual protests from people upset about the Vatican's stance on contraception and abortion rights, its perceived laxity about child abuse scandals in the church and its condemnation of homosexuality.

Cue, our Photo of the Day. Yup, that's Sir Ian McKellan, in a pro-gay rights march against the Pope.

(Photo: @themanwhofell via Twitter)

Can I just say that's the coolest T-shirt ever?


: : : UPDATE : : :

Oops! Eagle-eyed reader Saad Ghauri has pointed out that the above photo is photoshopped. The original as on the BBC site is this one:

Drat! We all agree, however, that the photoshopped version is cooler.