"Gay Outing" Campaign Rocks Italian Politics

Unlike many, I fully support "outing" conservative politicians who vote against legal protections for LGBT citizens and then hypocritically go out cruising for gay sex themselves. Historically, the press has been to reticent about exposing the hypocrisy and revealing these politicians for the sleazy bags that they are. This has long been the case in Italy - at least until now. A U.S. based website has named 10 prominent Italian political figures as closet cases and the proverbial sh*t has hit the fan in Italy. Frankly, it's entertaining to watch hypocrites get taken down and for the message be broadcast that anti-gay voting can and will have consequences. Here are some highlights from a Scotland Herald story:

With Italian newspapers awash with stories about the unorthodox heterosexual activities of Silvio Berlusconi, a group of gay activists have caused outrage by publishing a list of leading politicians accused of hypocrisy for opposing equal rights for homosexuals while being secretly homosexual themselves.

The 10 names published on a US-based website included a minister, a powerful undersecretary and a regional governor known for his taste in lively floral shirts. . . . All the politicians, some very close to the prime minister, are from parties that support the government and are blamed for stifling legislation that would recognize same-sex civil unions and increase penalties for homophobic violence.

Organisers of the website, which published a simple list of 10 names under the headline “Outinglist 23 September” surrounded by the rainbow colours associated with Gay Pride, said their action was intended to restore justice “in a country where people have no defence against the daily attacks and insults coming from a hypocritical and nasty political class”.

The anonymous bloggers said the Italian parliament was dominated by hypocrisy and discrimination and they were ready to publish the identities of other politicians, from all parties, whose real sexual orientation was known to them. “From now on whenever the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community comes under attack from the Catholic hierarchy, the media or politics we reserve the right to respond appropriately,” the organisers said.

Despite published allegations that the prime minister watched young women perform stripteases initially dressed as nuns and that he mockingly blessed their bodies while holding a crucifix in his hand, the Vatican has proffered no public words of moral condemnation. Yet the Catholic Church maintains its strong moral stance against homosexuality, condemning homosexual acts as “morally disordered” and exerting influence on parliament to prevent the passage of laws that would give equal recognition to same-sex couples as to the traditional heterosexual family.

With the psychological mindset that thrived under fascism still surviving to some extent even today, the accusation of being a closet homosexual is particularly damaging to politicians of the red-blooded right.