You know he was driving stick shift, honey...
June 8, 2005 1:19 PM   Subscribe

So that's what "Organ Donor" means on my driver's license - Gay tourists are hereby warned to butch it up at Italian car rental offices. [via mofi]
posted by AlexReynolds (26 comments total)
 
I was with you right up until this:

The man's lawyer...has demanded 500,000 euros ...."Danilo ... is deeply perturbed by what has happened. He has lost his hair and is suffering shock," Lipera was quoted as saying by Ansa

He also has whiplash, right? I think suspending someone's liscense based on sexuality is ridiculous and wrong, but the above has me reaching for the salt shaker.
posted by jonmc at 1:26 PM on June 8, 2005


That's not a salt shaker!
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 1:32 PM on June 8, 2005


Why would he lose his hair because they unlawfully took his license? Shock?

Come on now, I don't want to invoke the DQ (no, not Dairy Queen) here but this seems like much outrage over some idiots with power.

This part made me laugh though
The judges added that homosexuality "cannot be considered a true and proper psychiatric illness, being a mere personality disturbance."

Good to know my friends aren't mentally ill, they're just suffering from a personality disturbance that makes them like boys better than girls.
posted by fenriq at 1:33 PM on June 8, 2005


I should add that I have a gay cousin living in Italy. I'll tell him to dust off his bus pass.
posted by jonmc at 1:34 PM on June 8, 2005


In italy you can drive a 'quadracycle' without a license. Basicaly a car licensed as a motorcyle type thing. So it's not as bad as it would be over here.

Jonmc: how would you feel if, having told your doctor that you like to drink alchohol a lot the state government suspended your license and said you could only get it back if ou put a breath tester in your car? Even if you have never driven drunk? That wouldn't piss you off a huge amount? That has happened in the US.

Stressfull situations can cause hair loss.
posted by delmoi at 1:35 PM on June 8, 2005


delmoi: I didn't say it was impossible that it's all true, and if it is, then the guy should get some money. It just sounds an awful lot like shyster-speak for me, and it is possible to hook a fake gravy train up to a worthy cause. But I might just need to get my bullshit-detector recalibrated.
posted by jonmc at 1:42 PM on June 8, 2005


and what kind of personality disturbances do those judges have? ugh.
posted by amberglow at 1:57 PM on June 8, 2005 [1 favorite]


amberglow : "and what kind of personality disturbances do those judges have? ugh."

Presumably heterosexuality.
posted by Bugbread at 2:00 PM on June 8, 2005


This would/is-gonna get smacked down under so many EU rules, it's not funny. In the EU, we're so into personal freedom that we have to sign a piece of paper if we want to work more than forty hours a week, so forbidding somebody from doing anything legal for some, on the grounds of their sexuality, isn't ever going to fly.

Also, I've been hanging around with fake Italians, if this is a typical Italian attitude. Everything I've personally learnt about the Italians tells me that they don't care whether you're chasing guys or gals, as long as you're chasing somebody. Or something.
posted by veedubya at 2:02 PM on June 8, 2005


Kinda ironic with all the transvestites in Rome. Someone has to ride all those Vespas.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:27 PM on June 8, 2005


Stop getting your info from news channels and get it straight :) from Rome, Italy

The problem is rooted in the fact he avoided military service (yeah there was a one year mandatory conscription in italy till 2002 if my memory serves..I served in the army too) by declaring his homosexuality.

As we know military are so corageous they're patently homophobic..but I guess it's not because they're soldiers or because of their job..it's just because the militaries of all the worlds are afraid of women (indeed they're the first not to tolerate presence of women in the military) and they incorrenctly identify homosexual = women ..while it's not.
Also there's probably a number of closet gay in their ranks.

/rant

But the guy avoided military service..the "reasoning" is that if you're a conscience objector , meaning you refuse to kill anybody for whatever reason (therefore avoid conscription) then you can't get a job in the police..policeman may have to shoot criminals.

By analogy, if you were dispensed from conscription because of some "psycological illness" therefore you shouldn't be allowed to do things that are incompatible with said illness ..for instance if you have some illness that provokes sudden uncontrolled rage in you..you surely shouldn't drive as you may kill somebody..it's like giving a gun to a serial killer..a bad idea.

So the fact that he declared to be homosexual was used against him because, as homosexuality can't be diagnosed like a blood test, one could have faked it just to avoid the weight conscription. Therefore you should pay by having your driving licence revoked..which is a virtual condemnation to unemployement as public transportation is unexpensive but not very efficient in Italy.

Yeah it's pure retorsion...right wing govt, no surprise
posted by elpapacito at 3:12 PM on June 8, 2005


"You know, a personality disorder. Like enjoying the music of Silverchair."
posted by klangklangston at 3:22 PM on June 8, 2005


heterosexuality is indeed a severe personality disturbance.
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:11 PM on June 8, 2005


yeah, but the chicks dig it.
posted by jonmc at 4:14 PM on June 8, 2005


the heterosexual chicks, at least.
posted by tweak at 6:03 PM on June 8, 2005


the homosexual chicks will let us watch, if we're lucky.
posted by jonmc at 6:12 PM on June 8, 2005


How long would this thread be if this incident happened in Louisiana?
posted by shoos at 6:21 PM on June 8, 2005


shoos : "How long would this thread be if this incident happened in Louisiana?"

I predict approximately 140 comments by now.
posted by Bugbread at 7:34 PM on June 8, 2005


I kew a guy from Louisiana. But he called himself "Tex." He said "hey man, If i told the truth, they'd call me 'Louise.'"
posted by jonmc at 7:46 PM on June 8, 2005


"How long would this thread be if this incident happened in Louisiana?"

I predict approximately 140 comments by now.


I don't know, I've never visited the great State of Louisiana, but there are pretty long threads about this incident in Italian blogs. maybe the (mostly American) MeFi audience doesn't really care about foreign gays? it's pretty hard (not to mention useless) to try to predict how many comments a post will get.

back on topic, elpapacito speaks wise words. the yahoo story is quite lazily written, the whole point of the situation is this guy got out of mandatory military service by declaring that he is gay, as it it of course within his rights. sadly, he found a bigot in his Southerner military draft board* who decided to alert the local department of motor vehicles (shamefully, homosexuality is defined by Italian military rules "a psychological disorder", that's why you can avoid the draft if you come out as being gay).

the TAR, a local court, not even a national-level one, struck down that shameful decision. discrimination being of course clearly defined as illegal in Italian law (it is illegal all over the EU, all member states had to ratify that decision). homosexuality -- and sodomy -- are legal here, too. which of course makes it much less funny when you're practicing sodomy in your home and it's perfectly legal -- doing it in the many US States where it's unlawful gives you a certain frisson that I consider very interesting.

Danilo won't get much money out of this, not very soon anyway -- the civil court system is famously slooooooooow in Italy. but at least next time an apparatchik somewhere decides to bother gay people by trying to suspend their driving license, he'll know that it already ended up badly once. it's a small victory, in the end.


* (Southerner bigots in the military being of course the kind of people that doesn't really exist in the USA, as we all know)
posted by matteo at 12:39 AM on June 9, 2005


Could you really love cock so much that it harms your ability to drive a car?
posted by Gamblor at 7:21 AM on June 9, 2005


[ Insert Tom Cruise/"Days of Thunder" joke here ]
posted by Gamblor at 7:24 AM on June 9, 2005


(Southerner bigots in the military being of course the kind of people that doesn't really exist in the USA, as we all know)

Wow, that sure is relevant!
posted by Cyrano at 10:49 AM on June 9, 2005


cyrano: I think matteo was making a joke about Southern Italians, since he is a northerner. The regional divisions in Italy are something else, trust me.
posted by jonmc at 11:00 AM on June 9, 2005


OMG they don't care about foreign gays?

MeFascist Amerikkkan Talibanic homophobes!!
posted by shoos at 12:16 PM on June 9, 2005


matteo, another point that strikes me is that, independently of whether the Ministry of Defence and the department of motor vehicles can be found guilty of discrimination, by transferring this information from the one to the other, without Danilo's consent or knowledge, they were clearly flouting the EU Data Protection Directive.
posted by Skeptic at 1:30 PM on June 9, 2005


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