The Mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, has announced his intention to ban gay Pride parades in the city, describing them as “the height of kitsch”.

“There will never be a gay pride in my city,” Brugnaro was quoted as saying in La Repubblica. “Let them go and do it in Milan, or in front of their own homes.”

His comments garnered criticism from Italian gay rights group Archigay, who said the mayor was “making of fool of himself.”

“Venice is not his city. At the moment he is governing it, but he won’t last long given the fool he is making of himself,” said Arcigay’s president, Flavio Romani. “He is becoming obsessive about this. Venice does not deserve it.”

“We will be back next year and we invite the mayor to march at the head of the parade with us,” Romani told AFP. “That way he will see what a Gay Pride really is.”

Brugnaro is no stranger to controversy; the Venetian mayor came under fire from gay rights activists earlier this year by withdrawing books that depicted same-sex families from Venice’s nurseries and primary schools, reports BBC.