A View From Middle England - Conservative with a slight libertarian touch - For Christian charity and traditional belief - Free Enterprise NOT Covert Corporatism

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Italian wins gay driving ban case

One of the reasons Hitler wasn't keen on Mussolini being an equal in warmongering was that he wan't to be trusted. The Nazis thought the Italians couldn't be trusted. In fact, it went right through the German thought process. That's why the Italians were given co-belligerent status. A euphemism for being second fiddle. As it turned out, the Allies came to pretty much the same conclusion. Italians are not a people for warfare, being that they are more attuned to internal strife.

However, individual Italians can show panache, bravery, courage, all the things we think of in the battle. They can also show class. In the first Iraq conflict, an Italian officer insisted on taking his antique writing desk with him so that he could be esconced in his tent with a certain amount of comfort about him.

When it comes to being an individual in modern day Italy, it is the convuluting system of brown envelopes, regulation, and general inefficiency that one confronts. Danilo Giuffrida is homosexual. In Italy he has civil rights. However, he has also received a few civil wrongs. Certain people within authority decided they'd make his life difficult. So they put him through the hoop routine. He told doctors he was homosexual during a medical examination for military service. They then decided that he'd have to retake his driving test because of his "sexual identity disturbance".

He took them to court and won. The judge said the actions of the ministries showed "evident sexual discrimination". But that's not necessarily the problem. Of course they were way out of line, but I think it is very sneeky to undermine people in this way. It is the secretive element. It is the premeditated approach. It's almost like a cat playing with a mouse, deciding on what action to take with the hapless creature.

And if they think his "sexual identity disturbance" is reason to question his driving abilities, where does that put a lot of people? Max Mosley will be in trouble if he ever crashes a car!

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