Not to anyone’s surprise, the Vatican is sweating bullets over a bill that if passed, would effectively criminalize violence and hate speech against LGBTQ+ people, disable people, and women. The bill is known as the Zan bill, drafted by gay politician Alessandrio Zan. Anyways, what’s so horrifying about criminalizing criminal behavior? The Vatican argues that the law would hurt their freedom of thought and organization. Here’s a simple fix for them: Don’t beat up LGBTQ+ people, and keep your hateful speech to yourselves.
Italy has lagged behind numerous other EU countries in anti-homophobia measures despite having legalized same-sex marriage back in 2016. Nevertheless, any amount of effort against homophobia anywhere is good enough. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, thinks gay marriage is a “defeat for humanity”. I look forward to more sweet and salty tears from the Vatican as the world around them modernizes.