The Associated Press reports on Italy’s first accredited university course on gay studies offered this winter at the Milan University School of Political Science. The course was engendered by the experiences of 23 year old openly gay Giacomo Moro, who last summer was hanging a poster for a gay student’s association event when, unprovoked, he was attacked with homophobic insults, the man eventually threatening to kill Moro. “I didn’t seek charges against the guy,” said Moro. "This person’s hatred was born of ignorance. This class is something of response.” In the predominantly Roman Catholic culture, where church teachings contend homosexuality to be sinful, the course is something of revolution. Marco Mori, president of the Milan chapter of the gay rights group Arcigay, says “In Italy until now, if you spoke of gender on campus, it was in regards to grammar.” Antonella Besussi, the professor coordinating the class, says she received a storm of attention when it was announced, including some who called into the question the merits of the course. “This enormous media resonance has left me a little perplexed,” she said. The class was launched last week, with little controversy, nearly 200 students showed up for the first day and 120 of those enrolled in the class for credit. Giacomo Moro was overwhelmed by the success of the class, saying of his attacker “He found the wrong person. I have never had a problem speaking openly about these things. If it had been someone whose parents didn’t know, it would be more difficult. Where there injustice, I try to face it.”
The Canadian Press reports on Corinne Cestino and Sophie Hasslauer, two women from Val de Vesle, France, who have lived together for 15 years and raising four children. The couple benefit from a French law formally recognizing their partnership, but it is not marriage. So Friday, France’s Constitutional Court will hear their case demanding the right to wed. “It is not so much about getting married, but about the right to get married, says Cestino, a paediatrician. “So, that is what we asking for. Just to be able, like anybody else, to choose to get married or not.”
Lady Gaga Thursday tweeted the lyrics to Born This Way, the leadoff single from the her album Disco Heaven, the song, which will be released February 13th, supposedly the LGBT anthem of our time.
New York Rangers’ Sean Avery (who actually makes the NHL appear more exciting than it deserves to be) was asked by Marc Jacobs to participate in the “Protect the Skin You’re In” campaign, meant to raise awareness for melanoma research at New York University, and so Sean appears naked on a tee shirt available only at Marc Jacobs’ stores, reports NBC Sports. The shirt, which reads “Protect Your Largest Organ” and features Avery cupping his genitalia, is actually a reissue of an earlier effort, the campaign, which also features Victoria Beckham and Heidi Klum, having raised over $1 million to date.
Beautiful beefy Zac Efron spotted Saturday having something of a lady’s night in Los Angeles along Melrose Avenue at The Village Idiot.
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