Mayor of Venice wants to ban city’s gay pride
By Will Stroude
Venice’s increasingly vile mayor, who’s already sparked controversy after banning children’s books depicting same-sex relationships from nurseries and primary schools, has now set the city’s annual gay pride parade in his homophobic crosshairs.
Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Wednesday (August 26), the recently-elected Luigi Brugnaro affirmed that he didn’t want a gay pride hosted in Venice.
“There will never be a gay pride in my city,” he told the paper.
“Let them go and do it in Milan, or in front of their own homes.”
Brugnaro’s book ban following his election in June incurred the wrath of Sir Elton John, who slammed the decision and denounced the mayor as “boorishly bigoted” in an Instagram post.
Responding to the latest comments, Flavio Romani, from the Arcigay group, said: “We will be back next year and we invite the mayor to march at the head of the parade with us.
“That way he will see what a gay pride really is.”
Socially conservative Italy remains one of the last countries in Western Europe not to afford same-sex couples with any legal recognition – though last month the European Court of Human Rights ruled that as a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, this is in violation of Italy’s legal obligations to its LGBT nationals.
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