From words to deeds.
An ever shorter step.
A violent and organized beating, a 21-year-old boy who commits suicide, a school that organizes meetings aimed at diminishing the value of the family that does not fit into its pre-established standards.
Marco Giusta, president of Arcigay Torino, comments on the recent events that have shaken the LGBT community in Turin (and beyond) in recent weeks.
Today, we stand with Davide Betti, National Coordinator of GayLib, who was beaten in Turin because he was gay. Homophobia is now spreading in our city too, and after the attack a few months ago, the level of concern is rising.
Davide Betti was attacked by two men on the night between October 22nd and 23rd, near the old Porta Susa station in Turin. After several days of being treated for serious injuries, he was told he would not need surgery for his injuries. His crime? Being gay.
Added to all this are the homophobic impulses of those who want to advance discriminatory ideas that drip with hatred, passing them off as freedom of opinion, tearing their clothes when someone rightly intervenes to stop them, with the support of politicians who don't understand the difference between a debate and an attempt to inject venom.
President Marco Giusta is referring to the series of meetings that the Faà di Bruno private school had organized, and then canceled, which were clearly homophobic and discriminatory. He is responding to Silvio Viale, city councilor and president of the Italian Radicals, who commented that he disagreed with the cancellation of the school's initiative, citing the right to freedom of expression and thought. That same freedom, it seems, drove a 21-year-old from Rome to jump from a building last month and end it all. There may not be gay marriages in Italy, but there are certainly plenty of funerals. The president concludes:
“Evidently, the slumber of reason breeds monsters, and many are sleeping right now. Meanwhile, some are giving up and jumping off rooftops, and others are being attacked and beaten, in an Italy that some have the nerve to call "non-homophobic" and where "homophobia doesn't exist.".
So let's speak clearly, without hiding behind legal or religious arguments: have the courage to affirm that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex people, and anyone who does not conform to your morality must be corrected, re-educated, straightened out, and directed onto the right path. By any means. Reveal your true colors, you children of the ideology of a single morality and a confessional state. We have always known you, throughout the ebb and flow of history, supporters of this or that regime that ensures your conformity to the shortsightedness of your vision.