No driving while gay in Berlusconi’s Italy

In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive cars; besides lots of other oppression of women and of people in general.

Yet the Saudi dictatorial absolute monarchical government is one of the bulwarks of support for NATO’s war on Libya … a war supposed to be “humanitarian”.

Another source of support for that war is the Berlusconi regime in Italy.

Christian Friscina Translated from daily De Standaard in Belgium:

Italian does not get driving license because he is gay

Thursday, May 12, 2011, 11:17

The Italian Cristian Friscina will get no new driving license because he is gay. The authorities of Brindisi, where he lives, ruled that “his homosexuality made them doubt his mental health and thus, out of concern for security, they were unable to give him a new license.”

28-year-old Friscina ever since 1999 has a license, and, as he says, he has never been fined. But during his military service, things went wrong.

The Italian armed forces being a national, not a local, institution, show that this scandal cannot be dismissed as a local problem with a few rednecks in some backwater.

The Italian said that he was gay and “therefore” he was referred to the military hospital. The doctors concluded that the communication scientist was a danger to fellow motorists and that he’d better stop driving. They warned the authorities in Brindisi about this; who decided that the ‘mental illness’ was indeed too dangerous.

Paolo Patanè, president of the Italian gay movement Arcigay, emphasized how ridiculous the ban is: “It has long been known that homosexuality is not a disease. It is about time that everyone learns that.”

It is not the first time that gay men in southern Italy face this kind of discrimination. A few years ago, a Sicilian lost his license in the same way. When he did his driving exam again, he got just a licence for handicapped persons, valid for one year. Last month that man did receive a compensation of 20,000 euros.

A US House panel has approved a defence bill which contains a clause to delay the lifting of the ban on openly gay soldiers: here.

5 thoughts on “No driving while gay in Berlusconi’s Italy”

Italians strike to oppose worsening economic conditions

Thousands of public sector and transport workers participated in strikes and demonstrations May 6 against the current economic conditions.

Dozens of flights were cancelled in the country’s main airports and some train services were suspended.

Preliminary government figures showed around 13 percent of public sector workers were involved in strikes.

Tens of thousands attended rallies in all the major cities. One rally passed through the centre of Rome to the Coliseum.

The government has revised downward its economic growth forecast and is now predicting 1.1 percent growth this year. Italy’s unemployment rate rose to 8.3 percent in March from 8.2 percent in February—the first increase in months. The unemployment rate among young people aged 15 to 24 rose to 28.6 percent in March.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/wkrs-m13.shtml

LikeLike

Reply ↓