Silvio Berlusconi's parties: Italian prosecutors to question 30 women

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if such an individual made a judgement call that the Republican party were more likely to support Israel than the Democrats. That person could chose to remain in the closet - even make a big deal of being pro-traditional marriage, pro-family values, etc, - for political reasons.


this does not match up with this.



Such a person, if he or she existed, and I am not necessarily claiming they do, wouldn't be a closeted, self-hating gay that had internalised homopobia, they'd just be someone making a calculated and pragmatic political decision
.
 
And you have to take into account that managing to keep such a basic aspect of one's life hidden from public view will probably involve years of lying to and deceiving a whole lot of people, not just anonymous constituents and unlikely-ally colleagues, which is a pretty warping way to live.



many straight people do not understand this. they think it's as simple as who you do and do not fuck, and that's the end of it, and what else is there to talk about if you're not one to go around flaunting the fact that you're gay?
 
Mediaite.com | News & Opinion | Media: TV, Print, Online, Jobs, Ranking

As you all (hopefully) make your way to the polling booth today, you may find yourself disappointed with the crop of American politicians in front of you. However, to let you know that it could be worse (or at the very least, there’s jerks on every shore), let us present to you the following quote from Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The 74-year-old has gotten in trouble recently after allegedly paying a 17-year-old girl €7,000 after she attended parties at his house. Responding to calls for his resignation, Berlusconi pointed out with a shrug, well, at least he’s not gay. Touche, sir. Touche.

From Ireland’s RTÉ News:

“[Berlusconi] refused to apologise for his fondness for young women and denied doing anything improper, after the case of the girl known as Ruby filled Italian newspapers last week and opposition lawmakers called for him to resign.

‘As always, I work without interruption and if occasionally I happen to look a beautiful girl in the face, it’s better to like beautiful girls than to be gay,’
he told a meeting at a motorcycle industry show in Milan.

‘You should be completely reassured about the government and about the fact that it’s a government that still has a majority that intends to govern until the end of its term,’ he said.”
 
Berlusconi is such a slippery fuck.

No matter how wacky politics in the US, or occasionally Canada, seem it's always a bit of a shock to see how bad it gets in Italy sometimes considering his media links and corruption allegations.
 
Le donne want the downfall of il porco maschilista :up:

The Guardian, Feb. 13
Berlusconi the focus of day of protests by Italian women

Geppi Calcara, a Sicilian archivist, was there with her friend and 11-year-old daughter "because we're tired of our children living in a society of non-values", she said. "We find it really difficult to bring up our children with the values they're learning." Behind her, the Piazza del Popolo in Rome was filling up with tens of thousands of women, and many men who had arrived with their wives or girlfriends. "There are lots of us," said Calcara. "But we're not visible. The privately-owned TV channels, which belong to [Silvio] Berlusconi, and all but one of the [state-owned] RAI channels, manipulate the news. So people know nothing, or only half, of what is happening."

On Sunday, Italians dismayed by the prime minister and his antics got a chance to show their feelings in a way that even his television network will find difficult to ignore. Thousands of them assembled in piazzas from the foothills of the Alps to the tip of Sicily and in cities from Auckland to Zurich. "We're more than a million across the world," the actor Angela Finocchiaro told the crowd in the Piazza del Popolo. And though that claim may be disputed, there was plenty of evidence to suggest the numbers ran to several hundreds of thousands.

The posters for the demonstration proclaimed it was being held in support of "a country that respects women". That the need should be felt for such a protest in Europe, 11 years into the 21st century and several decades after Italy spawned one of the continent's most lively feminist movements is, in part at least, evidence of the impact of Berlusconi and his media empire. Last week, the 74-year-old prime minister learned that prosecutors had asked for his indictment on charges of paying an underage sex worker and abusing his official position when she was arrested. He denies any wrongdoing. His Mediaset network has for years thrived on supplying the public with schedules that are long on glitzy variety programmes and quiz shows that feature so-called veline--young, pretty women in scanty costumes whose most demanding duty in most cases is to hold up a score card.

But RAI too uses veline, and both networks reflect attitudes in society as much as create them. The posters for the demonstration were printed on a pink background without anyone apparently thinking that was patronising. Unlike Spain, Italy has not been altered by the change in relations between the sexes, so the words for positions of authority--chief, minister, lawyer and so on--have no have feminine forms.

According to the World Economic Forum's latest global gender gap report, Italy ranked 74th out of 134 countries surveyed—33 places below Kazakhstan. It scored particularly badly on economic participation and opportunity. Less than half of Italian women have a job and the notion that they should not return to paid work after having a child is still widespread.

Leaked documents from the inquiry into Berlusconi's private life are shot through with indications that aspiring showgirls in Italy are expected to give sexual favours. One claims to have been told by a talent scout who is close to the prime minister that she will have to make "sacrifices" if she wants to get ahead.

Romanian-born Liliana Popa, who married an Italian and teaches French at a Rome school, said she had come to the demonstration to protest at "the spread of a warped idea of relations between men and women. I want a society in which women are judged on merit and not on their degree of availability to men."
 
This person deserves to be driven from office and held accountable for his actions. Money and power should facilitate him getting off.
(though I suspect it has)
 
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