Italy: Gay Rights!!! Junior minister goes on hunger strike

An  Italian junior minister has gone on hunger strike to protest against the slow pace of reform on gay marriage, saying Italy is guilty of a “grave violation of human rights”.

Ivan Scalfarotto, 49, an undersecretary in the ministry of reform, said in a blog that the time had come for Italy which is now the only major western European country that does not recognise either civil partnerships or gay marriage to catch up with the rest of the world.

He wrote that he was aiming to rally the support of "all those people of good faith who have been thinking up until now that it was enough just to wait".

"Between the demonstrations of Catholic fundamentalists and the Gay Pride marches, you'd think there was nothing in between," wrote the minister, who is gay himself and a long-standing rights campaigner.

"The time has come to do something more to support those working to ensure Italy finally catches up with Kentucky, or at least gets near," he added in a reference to the recent US Supreme Court ruling which forces even the most conservative of states to allow gay marriage.

Mr Scalfarotto said he would not eat until there was “certainty on the date when this grave violation of human rights will end”.

The Telegragh