Bologna, December 20, 2013 – The video against homotransphobia, titled "Spegniamo l'odio!" (Let's turn off the hatred!), was produced by Arcigay and funded by the Council of Europe's LGBT Project as part of the activities envisaged in Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)5 to member states on measures to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The animation, released online today and produced by Latte creative, collects homophobic expressions and phrases uttered by Italian politicians and public figures and disseminated by mainstream media. The words of Vittorio Sgarbi, Daniela Santanchè, Giancarlo Gentilini, Giancarlo Cerrelli, Pino Scotto, Mariano Apicella, Romano La Russa, Padre Livio (Radio Maria), and Alessandra Mussolini are particularly recognizable. "It's an indictment of the hateful and contemptuous words to which LGBT people are subjected on a daily basis," explains Flavio Romani, president of Arcigay. "Too many people, sometimes even in institutional roles, use them casually without the slightest concern for the danger of certain messages, which they actually amplify using the megaphone of the mass media." "With this campaign," Romani continues, "we want to shake up that segment of public opinion that, while believing the content of those phrases to be wrong, fails to react, resigning itself to a trend considered almost inevitable." Arcigay has associated the video with a petition, launched through Change.org and addressed to members of the Senate, where the bill against homotransphobia is currently being debated: "While Europe has for several years adopted very specific and decisive policies to protect LGBT citizens with effective social inclusion measures," explains President Romani, "Italy has managed to systematically scuttle all these bills. The bill on homotransphobia, in particular, is currently the subject of an offensive "dance" around an unspecified freedom of expression, with decidedly pejorative amendments and sub-amendments. We want a law," Romani urges, "that, without any ifs or buts, without safe-conducts or watering down, establishes for homophobic and transphobic hate crimes the same provisions it has established for decades for various other crimes, such as racism and anti-Semitism.".
PETITION LINK: http://change.org/noomofobia
