When I think about family, the concept of family, an imaginary sweet confection comes to mind. A candy so perfect that it has yet to be invented, its taste and form is still unknown. Or substance for that matter. A candy made in Heaven. Family in Italy, however, is best left untouched: good old rock candy. Traditional. Something edible that everyone can comprehend. Woe betide whomever seeks to change it. It cannot have two fathers, two mothers. It cannot change form, color or packaging. Doing so would lead to degeneracy.
I understood this watching hundreds of thousands gather upon Rome's Circus Maximus: the Family Day rally is not officially sponsored by the Catholic Church yet they allowed many of their own to protest against a proposed bill that would grant same-sex couples -- as well as non-married couples of the opposite sex -- the same legal rights as married couples of the opposite sex. Among the legal claims would be the adoption of a child by the same-sex partner of his or her parent.
Most of the participants were families, many demonstrating with signs and banners defending the rights of children to be raised by both a mother and a father. Perhaps none of these guardians of the traditional family have ever tasted candy at all. I respect each and every single one of them, their ideas, their flags and unifying belief. Their candy-less mouths. Yet I could not help from feeling deeply disturbed by some of their bone-chilling words.
There were those who affirm that Mary and Joseph were Jesus' natural parents and that the Holy Spirit is an act of love from God; those who believe that children of homosexual parents will have, in due time, behavioral problems and will eventually become perfect targets for sexual abuse (by the gay parents, of course). Those who say homosexuality is a deviancy to be cured -- "Gays should be sent to insane asylums." "They shouldn't impose their personality disorders on the rest of us." "Homosexuality is an error of the human mind." "Who's been abused, will abuse." -- and this leads me to think that the Family Day battle is senseless, empty and void of culture. Perhaps they will never change their minds but in front of these words we should all swallow a sugar-coated sedative and try to speak and reason with them. Help them understand that their misguided information regarding us, the homosexuals that want to adopt children, goes against science and plain common sense.
Citing the words of Italian writer Michela Murgia, "all those that oppose the course of gender education, use the word gender. They pronounce it in English to make it seem alien. And people in Italy no longer know what it means." Gender education tends to deconstruct the culture of machismo.
Italy is a country where if you are an astronaut, newspaper headlines print 'Italian astronaut in space', if you are a female astronaut the headline reads 'woman astronaut in space'. A man can be whatever he desires. A woman can be whatever she is permitted to be.
This is discrimination. This is where the traditional family's candy loses its flavor and substance: There is no thrill in living without love and without knowledge.