Bologna, November 17, 2014 – “There is an alarming series of very serious incidents involving schools that urgently require intervention by the Ministry of Education.” Following the Perugia student's complaint, which was reported in the media, Flavio Romani, president of Arcigay, has made a heartfelt appeal to Education Minister Stefania Giannini. In recent months, we've read about teachers being fired for being homosexual, or forced to leave their positions for the same reason; then we learned of a covert profiling of schools requested by the Milanese curia through the network of religious education teachers, evidently heterosexual. This story parallels the absurd questionnaire distributed in an Umbrian school a year ago, which defined homosexuality as a crime. Then, this morning, numerous newspapers reported the story of a student beaten by a teacher for being homosexual, and seven days ago, the same newspapers discussed the case of a teacher who had defined homosexuality as a disease during class. Furthermore, the Catholic press has not overlooked the handbook distributed to organize parents against school projects aimed at combating homophobia and transphobia and overcoming stereotypes regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. A despicable act, which reveals not only the complicity of the Catholic world with respect to discrimination, bullying and violence in schools, but it even makes that lobby take on the role of the instigator of these emergencies". "At this point, we need not only clarification but also to open a discussion table," urges the president of Arcigay, "to ensure our school system is protected from the ideological incursions of those who seek to impose their own educational model, bypassing any governing body or democratic process. Our Constitution is very clear on education: public education is a right to be guaranteed and protected, without any discrimination. Yet in Italy, the system of public funding granted to private schools, the vast majority of which are Catholic, already undermines our constitutional principles. Furthermore, the letter "caught" in the correspondence between the Milanese curia and religion teachers, later clumsily withdrawn, is clear evidence of the control exercised by the ecclesiastical hierarchy over IRC teachers, an unacceptable restriction that casts an aura of insecurity over the entire public school system, which should be a place of education and welcome for all, without conforming to any dogma or religious belief. The situation, in short, is disturbing," he says. Romani: "There is no longer a time for verbal reassurances or pats on the back, especially considering the slowdown and, in some cases, even the paralysis of anti-discrimination measures planned by the ministry and UNAR. At this point, every suspicion is legitimate, and it is up to the minister to dispel the doubts that this rapid chronology of events raises for us and for the public at large. It is therefore time," Romani concludes, "for the ministry to call for a broad discussion on schools and, in that context, to outline the actions it intends to implement to bring schools back on the path imposed by our Constitution, from which they seem to have derailed for too long. Because this is the first essential requirement of a 'good school.'".
