Bologna, October 23, 2014 – "I would like to express Arcigay's full support for Davide Zotti, the teacher in Trieste who removed the crucifix from his high school classroom, and at the same time, our solidarity with the dance teacher in Umbria who was forced to resign his position because his parents discriminated against him because he was gay." Flavio Romani, president of Arcigay, commented on two news stories affecting schools today. The first occurred at a high school in Trieste, where Davide Zotti, Arcigay's school director, teaches. "This morning," Zotti reported, "I went into my classroom and took the crucifix off the wall. And I explained to my students why I did it." "Because yesterday, for the umpteenth time, a prominent figure in the Catholic hierarchy, in the Corriere della Sera, reiterated the Church's homophobic positions, stating that homosexuality does not conform to the reality of the human being. Nothing new," Zotti says, "but no less serious for that. As a teacher and a homosexual, I can no longer accept carrying out my work in a place, the classroom, marked by the principal symbol of the Catholic Church, which continues to trample on my dignity as a homosexual person. I no longer intend to teach under a symbol that represents an institution that continues to delegitimize me and therefore my very role as an educator. I have chosen civil disobedience," the teacher says, "with all the consequences that will ensue, as our State does not protect us from those who discriminate against us; rather, it guarantees, in a supposedly secular environment, such as public schools, the symbolic and de facto presence of a Church that never wastes a day insulting us, as people who demand individual and social rights. While I will pay "If I personally experience the consequences of my actions, representatives of the highest hierarchies of the Catholic Church will be able to continue undisturbed to make discriminatory statements that are damaging to our dignity." "Davide Zotti's actions," President Romani emphasizes, "deserve our full support because they highlight a discrimination that is alarming in our country, because it involves an area—schools—to which institutions should pay the utmost attention. However, this is not the case," Romani says, "and the case of the Umbrian teacher forced to leave his job is yet another disheartening example of this.".
