Italy Sees an LGBTQ Hate Crime Up Close. Will It Help Change the Law?
ROME—The week the Vatican announced it could not bless same-sex unions because they were “sinful,” 24-year-old Jean Pierre Moreno was feeling disheartened. The activist and member of the advocacy group Gaynet Roma had come to Italy from his native Nicaragua two years earlier in part because, as a gay man, he was discriminated against there. As a Catholic, he said the Vatican news disappointed him, but at least in Italy he says he felt safe.
Then, on Feb. 26, all of that changed. Moreno and his companion Alfredo Zenobio were waiting at a Roman subway stop when they shared a warm embrace and a kiss—something anyone who uses Roman public transportation can attest is a regular occurrence among straight couples. Then they heard a man waiting for the train in the other direction yell in Italian, “Non vi vergognate?” (Aren’t you ashamed?”) Morena says he yelled back, “Cosa te ne importa?” (“What do you care?”)
A few minutes later, the man illegally traversed the subway tracks and jumped up on the platform where the young men were, then punched Moreno in the face and started kicking and hitting them, yelling obscenities. A friend who was with them filmed the whole thing. They took the film to the police, who eventually checked the subway surveillance camera a week after the attack, but by then the tapes had been recorded over.