WAKE UP ITALY! With this hashtag, on Saturday January 23^rd 2016 in 100 Italian cities a flash-mob was held to support the long-awaited, and hopefully soon delivered, legislation about civil unions for same-sex partners, the so-called ddl Cirinna. For the occasion, I dusted off my old ostrich pink feather boa (as in exhibit A/B/C) and my proverbial feisty nature and rode, jolly and multicolored, to Milan’s city center to show my absolute support towards EVERYONE’s right to get married and create a family. To those ignorant morons who ask me why the hell should I care about civil unions since I am not gay and since I truly don’t hope/wish/care/aim at getting married, I answer them that you don’t need to be black to stand by blacks’ rights, as you don’t have to be a woman to support women’s rights. I stand for human rights, all and for all of them. This is called being a decent person. Exactly how a civil union (because the Italian legislative proposal doesn’t foresee the religious marriage – OMG! – but only civil unions) between same-sex people can undermine and threaten my family, my status and my heterosexuality (alas, I am coming out!) really defies me. How the heck can people only think, let alone act upon it, that such civil unions could affect and destroy traditional families? I have read shameful Christian claims saying these unions could damage ‘our’ children. Let me get this straight (or better, gay!); if two same-sex people get united in a civil union, your kids are affected by it … HOW? Because you parents don’t want to spend five minutes talking to your children explaining them that homosexuality is not a disease, nor an infection, nor a deviation but simply a lifestyle choice, an orientation, a diversification of love?! And because of this, millions of gay people should not be allowed to get married?! Parents should teach their children diversity, prepare them for a multiethnic, multilingual, multi-sexual new world. Jeez we are in the third Millennium, wake the fuck up! I really struggle to understand the reasons for this disturbing, ana(l)chronistic and futile hate/dismissal towards diversity. Maybe it’s because what is different from me, what I don’t know, the unfamiliar (oh yeah, I am very un-family-ar!) not only doesn’t scare me, but quite the opposite: it attracts me. Curiosity is my powerful driving force in life, always pushing me ahead and beyond, in order to explore every aspect of this world, in this fleeting, uncertain and short-lived existence. I don’t want to hole up in my nest, in my bell-jar, secure and untroubled with what I know. I love to venture out there, to then come back, satisfied with all the novelties I learnt, in my safe net. But you have to get out there, discover and open up to the unknown; craving each day to learn something new, accepting differences as incentives for our intellect and not threats to our status. Only who is insecure about his/her own nature can fear the other’s. If you are aware of yourself, if you respect yourself, follow your path and embrace your nature, no matter how different and odd compared to the mainstream, you can truly live, if not a 100% content life (well, somebody can?), a real honest truthful existence. Sometimes exciting, others exhausting. When I went to demonstrate my support for my gay brothers and sisters last Saturday, I truly felt moved and emotional. Because in my way of being and living, freedom and respect for diversity are my lifeblood. I am still appalled that not everyone thinks the same. How can a same-sex couple hurt me or my beliefs? How can their love affect mine? How can their lifestyle choices undercut mine? Really HOW?! It is precisely in fear and ignorance that evil and violence thrive. But allow me to end this much needed excursus on gay rights and gay love by posting a video by the talented and brilliant American comedian Louis C.K. about gay marriage and bigots’ stupid fears. ‘I never understood why people get so mad about homosexuals because they are just having sex between them and this doesn’t affect them just one bit.’ You tell them Louis! Therefore, what the fuck is YOUR problem?!