Italian minister claims Brussels is being run by homosexual majority

[emad]

The Times
From Richard Owen in Rome

EMBARRASSMENT in Italy over the rejection of its new “anti-gay” Commissioner by the European Parliament was compounded yesterday when a Government minister said the decision showed that Europe was dominated by “bum boys”.

Mirko Tremaglia, the Minister for Italians Abroad, said in a statement issued on official government notepaper: “Unfortunately Buttiglione has lost” — a reference to the European Parliament’s refusal to confirm Rocco Buttiglione as the European Justice Commissioner during recent hearings. He added: “Poor Europe — the culattoni are in the majority”.

As a furore broke over his words, Signor Tremaglia, 77, said that he was referring merely to the power of the “gay lobby” in Europe, but had translated the term into “plain Italian”.

“I am a country boy from Bergamo,” he said. “That’s how they express themselves in my part of the world.” The word culattoni derives from culo, meaning “arse” or “rump”.

More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1308548,00.html

[takumi]

1. Just Shows that there are 'Crude and Rude' People all over the world

[joeybee12]

2. That's it--I'm moving to Belgium!

I love Italy, but, damn it, their people in power really are a bunch of hicks! Sort of like us!

[Atlas Mugged]

4. I'm right behind you!

*pause for obvious jokes*

Belgium has officially moved into the top ten of my places-to-move-if-the-worst-happens list.

[joeybee12]

9. Yuk, yuk!

You know, I've never been except to fly through (caught a plane from Vienna there, and then onto the USA, and also on a train stop from Paris to Amsterdam (stood on the platform for a few minutes). Anyway, that's my extent of seeing Belgium, but it looks fantastic, and I have to get there!

[GinaMaria]

14. Those in power control the media in Italy

Does that sound familiar?

[Quetzal]

3. He basically referred to gays as "faggots"

Europe Controlled By 'Faggots' Italian Cabinet Member Asserts

(Rome) An Italian cabinet minister Wednesday launched into a homophobic tirade in response to this weeks rebuke of the country's nominee for the European Union's Commissioner for Justice.

Mirko Tremaglia, the minister with responsibility for Italians overseas called the rejection of Rocco Buttiglione by the EU civil liberties committee "outrageous". Buttiglione was called unsuitable for calling homosexuality "a sin". (story)

The non-binding vote by the committee resulted in protests by the conservative government of Silvio Berlusconi in Rome.

"Poor Europe: the faggots are in the majority," Mirko Tremaglia declared. Both Berlusconi and Tremaglia have close ties to US President George W. Bush. Italy is a member of the coalition against terrorism.

more...

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/10/101304euSlur.htm

[Ready4Change]

5. Are they doing a good job?

.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

6. I offer my sincerest apologies

as an Italian... most Italians are not homophobic... we just happen to have an administration headed by Silvio "indictment boy" Berlusconi made up of hicks and inbred morons...

Sorry! :D

[Demeter]

7. And His Point Is?

This kind of baiting escapes me. Now if he had said they were fascists, or terrorists, or some other political evil, that might be significant.

[struggle4progress]

8. Mussolini's ghost: Europe and the specter of fascism

Tikkun
July-August 1994
by Richard Wolin

<snip> Other recent events involving prominent MSI figures have been no less disturbing. In May, a former supporter of Mussolini's Italian Social Republic (the puppet state established by the Nazis at Salo in the last years of the war), sixty-seven-year-old Mirko Tremaglia, was elected president of the Italian Parliament's newly created foreign affairs commission, which is charged with safeguarding the welfare of Italians living abroad. After summarily denouncing the Maastricht Treaty on European unity, he proceeded to raise irredentist claims with reference to Italian territories that were ceded to Yugoslavia following World War II. "Istria, Dalmatia, and Fiume (Rijeka) are Italian lands in historical and cultural terms," he remarked in a widely noted recent interview. <snip>

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1548/is_n4_v9/ai_15667183

[Inland]

10. The "culattonni" don't like "Butt-ligioni"? Gee, Europe is confusing?

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

11. Culattoni v. finocchi - an etymological story

Being from northern Italy myself, I had never heard Culattoni (loosely translated, "butt people") as a disparaging homophobic remark. However, I had heard about Finocchi (literally, fennels), which has an interesting origin and it is plural for finocchio (feen-oh-kee-oh) which is the fennel.

During the Middle Ages and the heretic-burning wild and crazy days of the inquisition, homosexuals (whether real or perceived) were burned on pyres of wood and fennel. When fennel burns, it gives off a very particular odor.

As to the comments, I am "straight but not narrow" and I find them absolutely reprehensible and I can assure you that most Italians are not backward inbred hicks. In fact, ArciGay, one of Europe's oldest gay rights associations, was founded in Bologna in 1985 (www.arcigay.it).

If you can read Italian, there is an interesting article on the Tremiglia/Buttiglione story on the ArciGay website.

[mom cat]

12. I object to the sexist differentiation in territory. I don't mind the Gay

men taking over Brussels, but it is not fair that the lesbians are stuck in Oklahoma! :evilgrin:

[Endangered Specie]

13. Italian government... accusing others of corruption?

Some irony there eh?

[Bluebear]

15. "I'm just a country boy, that's how we talk." Sound familiar?