Gay Jibes May Draw Fines in Italy
Even as Italy's courts take up the issue of marriage equality, a parallel issue is working its way through the justice system there: whether or not the nation's laws against insulting people extend to slurs regarding a person's sexuality.
For some GLBT equality advocates, the question isn't whether gay insults should be punished; it's whether calling someone gay is even an insult to begin with, reported Global Post in a March 23 article. "It risks reinforcing the idea that if you call somebody gay, they should feel offended," Italian GLBT equality advocate Aurelio Mancuso said of a decision by an Italian high court last week that anti-insult laws do cover instances when one person calls another gay with the intention of denigrating him. However, "For us to be called gay is to be serene and comfortable," Mancuso said, adding, ""I'd like to understand why being called gay is so offensive in this country."
The ruling was made in a court case brought by Luciano T. against Dante S. The two men were professional rivals, the article said; in a letter to Luciano T., Dante S. allegedly called his rival "gay" and suggested that he had had a relationship with another man, a sailor with whom Luciano T. had vacationed. Moreover, Dante S. insinuated that Luciano T. might be a pedophile.
The court determined that the accusations, and the epithet, were meant in a derogatory manner, and fined Dante S. a total of just over $6,000
"The fact that the word is neutral doesn't mean it can't be used to offend," Arcigay's Paolo Patane said. "If the intention is to hurt, to humiliate, and in doing so I add actions or other words, then it's an offense." In this case, "It's the association between being gay and being a pedophile that's unacceptable," said Patane.
Other nations in Europe also make insults an offense. In the United States, social and religious conservatives have claimed that hate crimes legislation would open the way to "thought crimes" by criminalizing opinions and speech that denigrate GLBTs. Hate crimes legislation in this country do not provide for the prosecution of opinions, restricting penalties to violent acts that target victims on the basis of certain minority statuses such as race, religion, sexuality, or other demographic features that might make a person the target of hate-motivated physical attack.
Certain forms of speech are more closely regulated in other countries. So-called "hate speech" can be a cause for police inquiry in the U.K. or in Canada. American right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, informed before a Canadian appearance by a university provost about Canadian laws on hate speech, attempted to portray the notification as a "threat" by the university "to criminally prosecute me for my speech." Coulter lashed back with, ""Now that the provost has instructed me on the criminal speech laws he apparently believes I have a proclivity (to break), despite knowing nothing about my speech, I see that he is guilty of promoting hatred against an identifiable group: conservatives.
"The provost simply believes and is publicizing his belief that conservatives are more likely to commit hate crimes in their speeches," Coulter continued. "Not only does this promote hatred against conservatives, but it promotes violence against conservatives," a March 23 Newsmax.com article reported her saying. The appearance was eventually canceled due to safety concerns.
In the U.K., a similar debate flared up over several attempts by lawmakers there to amend a hate crimes law by removing a specific guarantee that religiously-based hate speech targeting gays would not be liable to prosecution. Christians and comedians alike worried that anti-gay speech--whether in sermons or as punch lines to jokes--would lead to legal repercussions if the law were amended. All the attempts to revise the law were defeated, however.
Even with such protections in place, however, U.K. Christians insist in the media that they are being persecuted by laws designed to address hate crimes and discriminatory treatment. Critics of such laws point to cases in which individuals who expressed anti-gay sentiment based on their assertion of Christianity were questioned by police.
In one incident, a grandmother, the wife of a revered, wrote to local authorities to protest a gay Pride event she had witnessed. 67-year-old Pauline Howe, who lives near Norwich, England, condemned the Pride parade as a "public display of indecency" and "offensive to God," in her letter, going on to make a number of broad claims, including the assertion that same-sex intimacy had "contributed to the downfall of every empire" and "was a major cause of sexually transmitted infections."
In her letter, Ms. Howe declared that, "It is shameful that this small but vociferous lobby should be allowed such a display unwarranted by the minimal number of homosexuals."
Local officials sent a pair of Norwich policemen to investigate, since the letter raised concerns about hate speech. In a letter to Ms. Howe, county official Bridget Buttinger explained that, "The content of your letter has been assessed as potentially being hate related because of the views you expressed towards people of a certain sexual orientation," and advised Mrs. Howe that, "Your details and details of the contents of your letter have been recorded as such and passed to the police."
The visit from two officers came later, and the policemen clarified for Ms. Howe that her choice of wording made her missive appear to be an example of hate speech.
However, Ms. Howe insists that her invective was not hate-based. "The officers told me that my letter was thought to be an intention of hate but I was expressing views as a Christian," she told the media. U.K.-based organization the Christian Institute saw the visit from local authorities as a possible example of religious freedoms and free expression being trampled.
A similar case in which a married couple in Lancashire professed their Christian beliefs in anti-gay language and were visited by the police resulted in a payout to the couple.
Christian Institute spokesperson Mike Judge told the press, "People must be free to express their beliefs--yes, even unpopular beliefs--to government bodies without fear of a knock at the door from police," and went on to assert that, "It's not a crime to be Christian but it increasingly feels like it."
The Norwich police said that they were simply doing their job in looking into the letter, stating, "We investigate all alleged hate incidents. In this instance the individual concerned was visited by officers, the comments discussed, and no further action was taken."
British GLBT equality advocate organization Stonewall saw the visit from police as having gone too far, given the letter's content. Said Stonewall executive director Ben Summerskill, "Clearly her views are pretty offensive but nevertheless this [response] is disproportionate."
In the United States and elsewhere, similar arguments are made that religious liberties and full legal equality for GLBT citizens are bound to clash. Religious individuals who believe that scripture condemns homosexuality chafe that anti-discrimination protections might mean that they are breaking the law when they speak out against gays. Such possible conflicts between faith and law are seen by some people of faith as further reason to deny GLBT individuals and families full equality before the law.
Italian law does not criminalize homosexuality, and gays are allowed to serve openly in the military. However, although regional law may offer some protections, national Italian law does not recognize gay and lesbian families. Overall, Italian society is less accepting than many European countries. A Wikipedia article on the topic attributes this to the country's strong Roman Catholic tradition, and the church's stance on gays.