«"We were dancing in the disco, beaten up because we were gay"»

MILAN Security personnel insulted and beat them in a nightclub because they were gay. This happened, Arcigay reports, to seven young men, including Marco Coppola, provincial president of Arcigay Verbania and a member of the association's national secretariat, in a nightclub in Luino (Varese). "The young men were simply dancing on a cube together," the association reports, "when, 'identified' as homosexuals, they were forced to get off, insulted, brutally beaten, and finally removed from the club." The Luino Carabinieri are investigating the incident, having already collected several testimonies, which, however, reveal two conflicting versions. Security officials attribute the incident to a fight, typical of those in public venues: they say they removed the young men from the club due to some disruptive behavior, and that a fight broke out outside the nightclub. Both the bouncers and the gay patrons suffered minor injuries. While the incident is still being clarified, reactions have been unleashed. "This episode truly marks an unbearable limit," commented Paolo Patanè, national president of Arcigay: "My solidarity with Marco Coppola and the other young people, filled with anger for the unjustifiable brutality and hatred they have suffered," he continued, "and for a battle that always crashes against a wall of scandalous ideological silence." Democratic Party MP Paola Concia, for her part, will submit a question to the Ministers of Labor and Interior, Elsa Fornero and Annamaria Cancellieri: "While yet another unacceptable act of homophobia has taken place against seven young people guilty of simply having fun in a nightclub, combating homophobic and transphobic violence seems to have absolutely no place on the Monti government's agenda," the MP stated. This comes on the very day Fornero herself commented on the Supreme Court's ruling on de facto couples: "I can only say that the Court of Cassation has affirmed a true principle of equal opportunity. I respect all rulings, including this one. By my background, I'm a bit of a traditionalist. As a minister, I must affirm that equal opportunities are the responsibility of all people, regardless of their sexual or political preferences, or their color." "Cases of homophobia are on the rise throughout Italy," comments Fabrizio Marrazzo, spokesperson for the Gay Center, who says, "according to data from Gay Help Line 800.713.713, a toll-free number against homophobia, in recent months we have seen an increase in contacts, around 2,000, and in reports of violence and abuse in 38% of cases.".