Source: Reuters, Agenzia Italia
ROME -- Italy's new minister for equal opportunities has angered rights groups by refusing to back a "Gay Pride" march because, she says, gays no longer suffer discrimination in Italy.

Mara Carfagna said in comments published on Monday she would not back the June gay pride event in Bologna "because 'Gay Prides' are pointless."

"Homosexuality is no longer a problem, at least not the way the organizers of these demos would have us believe," she said. "Gay Pride's real aim is official recognition for homosexual couples, on a level with marriage. I cannot agree to that."

"Gone are the times when homosexuals were declared mentally ill. Nowadays they are integrated into society," Carfagna told Corriere della Sera. She said she would sponsor seminars dealing with "discrimination and violence" against gay people.

The rights group Arcigay asked how she could say gay people suffer no discrimination in a country where they "are forced to hide their sexual orientation at home, at school and at work."

Arcigay head Aurelio Mancuso said Carfagna lived in "a fairy-tale land." He said 14 gays or lesbians had been murdered in Italy in the last two years, 50 had suffered grave violence and thousands had been discriminated against.

The appointment of 32-year-old former Miss Italy contestant and television showgirl Mara Carfagna to the equal opportunities post is seen by some rights groups as a deliberate provocation by conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Reuters reports.

"I am aware" Carfagna wrote in a communiqué released today "that there is a lot of discrimination in schools, universities and in the work place, and I believe that Italy has a duty to fight this attitude with resolution," but then she said demonstrations like gay pride events are "more about exhibitionism than anything else." 

She insisted in today's communiqué that Berlusconi's government would consider only small steps to alleviate that discrimination and would not consider equal rights for lesbian/gay couples. "[T]he GLBT movement cannot expect homosexual couples to have rights which are recognized as equivalent or similar to those which a heterosexual family is guaranteed."

"If they want to discuss how to combat discrimination and to avoid inequality, the Ministry of Equal Opportunities is ready to find immediate solutions, but if someone wants to undermine the concept of family or dictate political agendas to the ministry, they will find the doors closed," she wrote.

The center-left government that collapsed in January failed to win legal status for same-sex unions due to opposition from Roman Catholic politicians. Italy is in a dwindling group of European Union countries not to have recognized gay marriage or civil unions.

Berlusconi, a 71-year-old media mogul, portrays himself as an unashamedly old-fashioned "ladies' man," and earned a public reprimand from his long-suffering wife for flirting publicly with women politicians including Carfagna.

During the campaign he said women on the right were prettier and called his older women supporters "the Menopause Section."

Full article: Gays tell Italian minister: Wake up to prejudice | Reuters via Yahoo! News
GAY PRIDE: CARFAGNA, NO SUPPORT FOR EXHIBIIONISM | AGI News