If I could be in Rome today I would go to the Gay Pride. And not out of "outside" solidarity with a struggling category. I would go because, as an Italian citizen, I recognize the rights of homosexuals as my own rights, and the political isolation of homosexuals as my own political isolation. I would go because the secular nature of the state and its laws is dear to me, right now, more than anything else, and every public square fighting for a secular state is also my public square. I would go, finally and above all, because, like so many others, I am worried and now almost distressed by the hesitations, the timidity, the confusion that are almost completely paralyzing the ruling class of my political party, the left.
A political party incapable of embracing, without any ifs or buts, the most fundamental, basic, and even elementary of republican principles: that of equal rights. 'Equality of human beings regardless of differences in faith, political beliefs, or sexual orientation. I would go because I have a well-founded fear that the new common home of the Democrats, the Democratic Party, will be born by sidelining this principle so as not to displease its clerical component (not Catholic: clerical. Catholics are a different matter entirely).
I would go because potential Democratic Party voters have a duty to let the party's Founding Fathers know, whoever they may be, that they are not willing to vote for a ruling class that hesitates, or worse, argues, even after the first brick is broken. Which is the secular nature of the state. A Piazza San Giovanni populated exclusively by homosexual and transgender people today would be a sign of defeat. The various clerical campaigns underway tend to portray the entire issue of cohabitation, the reform of family legislation, and the DICO (Dico) as a niche issue.
Problems of a culturally diverse and sexually unorthodox minority, which do not concern the placid course of civil life of the majority, that of the "traditional family". But the opposite is true. The entire structure (cultural, civil, political, legislative) of individual rights and the rights of relationships affects the entirety of our national community. The mere claim to elevate a single ethic, a single mentality, a single way of forging bonds between individuals and before the community as a model is more than enough to make us understand that what is at stake are not the customs or destiny of a minority. But the customs and destiny of all.
I would go because having to put up with the excesses of identity, the excess of folklore, and the embarrassing vulgarity of some of the protesters is a very small price compared to what these same people had to pay for discrimination and silence. And sins of pride are, in any case, less damaging and painful than humiliation and self-denial. And if the square were to be dominated primarily by these skits, to the delight of cameramen and reporters, the blame would be primarily on those absent, who failed to understand that Piazza San Giovanni, today, belongs to all citizens. If there are prejudices to be set aside, and "aesthetic" mistrust to be quelled, today is the right day.
Finally, I would go because in that Roman square today, no one will ask to deny the rights of others in favor of their own. No one will want to promote a Model by penalizing others. It won't be a square that works by subtraction, like the respectable but underlyingly threatening Family Day. It will be a square that wants to add something without taking anything away.
No "traditional family" has ever felt censored or hindered or diminished by other people's different choices. No heterosexual has ever experienced, in their heart, the violence of being labeled "against nature." Those who feel threatened by homosexuality have no clear understanding of the concept of freedom. Freedom is even more than the concept of secularism.
