Italian politicians

"communism goes and gays arrive. Natural: communism was authoritarian, we are libertarians."

"had a secular-libertarian beginning. Inside there was even a gay group, Los Padania, Free Sexual Orientation of Padania. Bossi declared: "We are against all discrimination". Maroni told me that he was in favor of de facto families and gay adoptions: now it's completely the opposite. I always say this to Northern League supporters: "Get treatment, the cat is harboring us in your obsession"."

"Knowing the Italian Catholic Church, knowing Italian politics, knowing the political culture that exists in Italy, which is a culture that goes from clerico-fascism to Catholic-communism, I am absolutely not surprised by this reaction homophobic, this racism - I would call it - real. These are positions that claim to ensure that the Italian parliament follows the directives of the Vatican State. This doesn't happen in any other European country, in any other Western country. We only have a dynamic of this type in Islamic countries."

"[...] breaks the very strong hypocrisy of the center-right on the homosexual issue [...] The other evening Taormina shouted on a local TV program that he was normal and gays were not. But Cecchi Paone is not the only gay or bisexual candidate of the centre-right. He is the first who has the courage to say it."

"I'm angry, I'm furious about this matter of Dalla and his funeral. We began and continued with a hypocritical delivery of silence regarding Marco Alemanno. There was talk of a bosom friend, a main collaborator... Marco was simply Dalla's companion, I often met them at the newsstand in Porta San Vitale, they didn't flaunt anything but they didn't hide anything. Lucia is absolutely right. If Dalla had married Marco in New York or Oslo or Madrid, as many Bolognese couples did, he would never have had a funeral in San Petronio, a symbolic church owned by the Municipality but managed by the Bolognese Curia."

"first openly gay gentleman. After all, we have also had gay ministers and prime ministers. On the first day in Montecitorio I identified about seventy. Believe me, I have the gaydar, the gay radar. And those I didn't catch, they came to confide in me, "I have a family, don't disgrace me, but... do you have the address of some place?""

"[...] I am living proof that gays, contrary to what homophobes say, don't always think about sex. I have had a satisfying love life, rich and intense relationships, including the one I experience today. But many of them ended because my boyfriends dumped me, "you're married to politics". When you do politics, you are a priest. I fought for something that I wasn't able to experience personally"."

"[...] we changed this country anyway. Gays beat them, they committed suicide. They spat on us. It's not a paradise even now, but gay 15-year-olds now tell their mom. We had a nonviolent civil revolution and some didn't even notice."

"It was a total war: months and months of chemo in which I was more over there than over here. But I said to myself: it's not time to die. I reacted tooth and nail, I did the treatment exactly as the doctors said and for now we are saved. Even with many aches and pains and a chronic illness: I am a man who needs assistance. But I have no intention of hiding: I lived through the entire AIDS era, when the disease was considered a fault, something to be ashamed of, and I said to myself: I speak from the rooftops about myeloma. And I show myself: I place myself in the wheelchair and let myself be pushed."

"[...] Marx and Engels were a bit homophobic. There is a letter in which Engels writes to Marx commenting on the first LGBT movements in Germany and says: if they win we will have to walk around in tin underwear..."

"When the Renzi government placed its vote of confidence, a technician was called to Rome, a magistrate from Bologna, to quickly reformulate the law and fury in the night. He wrote the article on adoptions in order to satisfy Alfano because there was no longer stepchild adoption, but giving magistrates the possibility of granting it every time a couple requests it."

"We learn that Berlusconi complains to Dini accusing him of having copied the C.E.1994 Forza Italia program. Strange, I understood that it was Berlusconi who had copied someone's program. A guy who lives in Tuscany, Licio Gelli. One might say: whoever does it waits for it. (from Ansa, 28 February 1996)"

"It is an unfortunate comparison that of the Uno Bianca gang used by Silvio Berlusconi to express his personal assessment of the judiciary. Regardless of the fact that Silvio Berlusconi is accused of corruption in a trial currently underway at the Court of Milan, it is good that Berlusconi meditates on the fact that "accomplices" of this "deviant body" of the State are also the hundreds of thousands of Milanese who in recent years have morally supported the activity of Clean Hands magistrates against the attacks of the Rome regime to which Berlusconi was also linked sentimentally, given that Craxi was his best man at his wedding. Do you want to compare the Milanese prosecutor's office to the Uno Bianca gang? It is an infamy that a self-styled candidate for the leadership of the country has such contempt for the victims of the gang of criminals, including some young carabinieri, that he compares his legal troubles and those of his friends to the blood shed by those who had the The only crime is to stop brutal murderers. These arguments are not election campaign. They are an insult to all citizens. (from Ansa, March 14, C.E.1996)"

"I would like to know if there is anything else needed to say that Craxi was a loyal supplier of Fininvest, paid handsomely for services that we all expect to know in detail. In fact, the real question is: what did Craxi give to Berlusconi in exchange for 15 billion lire? Since the payments were negotiated by senior Fininvest officials in close contact, in October '91, the time of these events, with Silvio Berlusconi, and taking into account the very large amount of the same, it seems strange to us at least that Berlusconi knew nothing about these financial operations. It would seem proven, documents in hand, that Silvio and Bettino are inextricably linked by relationships that go well beyond friendship and well outside the law which both consider unsuitable for their political conduct even before their professional one. Berlusconi's television mask crumbles and the unmistakable grin of the man from Hammamet appears. (from Ansa, March 31, C.E.1996)"

"Forza Italia appears as the party that in the Bicameral wanted to trade the country's reforms for Berlusconi's criminal record. (from Ansa, June 3, C.E.1998)"

"Sabina you will be my bride. I swear before the fire that purifies me. It will fuse this metal as our newly generated lives (Celtic Marriage Formula. Corriere della Sera, September 21, C.E.1998)"

"Biagi and Santoro act like candid virgins and respond to Berlusconi by talking about intimidation of power. But they were the real powerful ones for years, giving rise to biased broadcasts, siding with the left against the League and the Polo, without giving them the right to reply and even setting up unpleasant traps, as happened in the episode dedicated to Marcello Dell 'Utri. Biagi underlines that the Board of Directors will have to fire him and not the prime minister. Luckily Biagi's contract is expiring and it will be enough for the Rai top management not to renew it. (from Ansa, April 19, C.E.2002)"

"O Signùr, but what's the point of a magistrate judging me, it's like asking the innkeeper if the wine is good. (from Corriere della sera, March 24, C.E.2005)"

"gay civilization has transformed Padania into a receptacle of culattoni... (quoted in And the minister Calderoli was macho, Corriere della sera, January 15, C.E.2006)"

"Here we risk becoming a nation of rich people. (quoted in And minister Calderoli was macho, Corriere della sera, January 15, C.E.2006)"

"Pacs and various filth are based on dry sex and these absurd claims of privileges by the bottoms... (quoted in Corriere della sera, January 15, C.E.2006)"

"But stop that lady, the tanned one over there, the one from the desert and the camel. (from Matrix, February 6, C.E.2006)"

"[Addressed to Mentana, talking about the electoral law] I wrote this law here but it's bullshit, I tell you frankly. (from Matrix of 15 March 15, C.E.2006 part 5)"

"The Christian who votes to the left takes the side of sin and the devil. (from City, March 22, C.E.2006)"

"The spectacularization and ostentation of one's homosexuality in Gay Pride style damages not only the natural family founded on marriage, but also homosexuals themselves who experience their sexuality not as a freak show. [...] Homosexuals are different, but those of the Gay Pride are sick, and not only in terms of protagonism."

"[About the victory of the Italian national football team against France in the C.E.2006 World Cup final] Victory of our identity, a team that fielded Lombards, Campania, Venetians or Calabrians, won against a team that lost , sacrificing their own identity for the result, lining up blacks, Muslims, communists. (Ansa, July 10, C.E.2006)"

"[Regarding the problems of managing illegal immigration] One salvo in front, one salvo behind the limit of territorial waters and you will see that the boats will no longer leave. (from Bianchi: "Let Gaddafi intervene on these tragedies are not about", Repubblica.it, August 22, C.E.2006)"

"The opposition is wrong when it says that little work is done in the Senate, the majority is wrong when it says that work is done: the reality is that the Senate does nothing. (from E Polis Milano, March 14, C.E.2007)"

"Without this and the other Berlusconi trials, the House of Freedom would be in government today. Would those 25 thousand voters have voted in favor of Prodi, knowing that his opponent was not the criminal that some wanted to make him believe? (from Corriere della sera, April 28, C.E.2007)"

"Those who live a natural sexuality do not believe they need to demonstrate due to their pride, those who instead live an unnatural sexuality and believe they need to express their pride by doing so question the very thing itself. To all the gay pride protesters I make an appeal: repent and the good Lord will sacrifice the fatted calf. (quoted in Gay Pride, Rome invaded: «We are a million», Corriere della sera' ', June 16, C.E.2007)"

"As we know, I prefer the law of retaliation. (from the interview with Marco Damilano, A Nord non passaranno, L'espresso, December 6, C.E.2007)"

"Can I make a racist point, but racist in quotes? There are ethnic groups with a greater propensity to work and others with less. There are those who have a greater predisposition to crime. (from Matrix; quoted in Calderoli shock: "There are ethnic groups more predisposed to crime", Quotidiano.net, June 4, C.E.2008)"

"[Regarding Gianfranco Fini's proposal to extend the right to vote to immigrants] The Constitution makes no distinction between voters in political and administrative elections. I would never want to find a tanned president in five years and a month. (from Vote for immigrants, Calderoli: I would never want a tanned president, Il Messaggero, September 4, C.E.2009)"

"A clear signal comes from Switzerland: yes to bell towers, no to minarets. What emerges is respect for freedom of religion and the need to curb political and propaganda aspects linked to Islam. (quoted in Minarets: Calderoli, clear signal, ANSA, November 39, C.E.2009)"

"Tettamanzi has absolutely nothing to do with his territory, it would be like putting a mafia priest in Sicily. Why did Tettamanzi never intervene in defense of the crucifix? Why does he only talk about the Roma? I had already said that someone in the Curia of Milan was a child of Catholic communism. (quoted in 'La Padania' and the Northern League attack Tettamanzi, La Voce d'Italia, December 7, C.E.2009)"

"Give the vote to non-EU citizens? A civilized country cannot make bingo-bongos vote who until a few years ago were still in the trees. (quoted in Calderoli, se questo è un minister, L'espresso, June 22, C.E.2010)"

"We Po Valley will go to Brussels, we will bring some wisdom of the cross to those people of pedophiles! (quoted ibidem)"

"We do not appreciate either when finiani attack Berlusconi nor when tools that have nothing to do with politics are used to attack someone else."

"Let's avoid little games, vote, count, but then stop busting balls."

"[on the revelations of WikiLeaks] Faced with the confusion that seems to reign in these hours, with everyone waiting in amazement for the revelations of a website, the only thing that comes to my mind is that it is necessary a little Po Valley wisdom to avoid fueling chaos and I reiterate that we need to wake up politics to prevent monsters from being born. [...] What we are experiencing is a result of globalization that we arrived at as unprepared amateurs. The economic crisis has upset the balance and the governments in power are paying the consequences. You don't have to look very far to find the so-called 'big brother': I could say that the League had said years in advance what then happened with the games of international finance."

"You learn by making mistakes but here you risk learning too much."

"You don't know what to do with opposition like that. If you say red they want black, if you say black they want yellow. They are devoid of proposals and plans. They only live off what the government does. (quoted in Ancora_scontro_su_referendum Nucleare, there is still a clash over the referendum, AGI, April 20, C.E.2011)"

"The Montezemolos are farts of humanity, who have never worked in their lives. (from Calderoli attacks Montezemolo, Tgcom.mediaset, August 21, C.E.2011)"

"I love animals, bears and wolves as we know, but when I see the images of Kyenge I can't help but think, even if I don't say she is, of the appearance of an orangutan. (quoted in Calderoli insults minister Kyenge, Corriere.it' ', July 14, C.E.2013)"

"I believe I am one of the few who has already shown the courage to resign and I resigned as Minister for a t-shirt whose contents no one has actually ever seen. Only after years was it discovered, once the Gaddafi regime fell, through the mouth of his ambassador in Italy, that in Libya no one knew myself and the related t-shirt, that the demonstration had been organized against Gaddafi's regime and that he had stationed snipers in the Italian embassy to shoot at demonstrators. Calderoli had nothing to do with it: the architect of everything was Gaddafi who, through blackmail on Libyan oil and gas, asked for my resignation. Resignation I gave. I, who am a convinced independence activist, then demonstrated what the meaning of the State and the institutions was, resigning without any motion of no confidence, for the good of the country which was in a moment of very serious difficulty due to international tensions. I would like this to be recognized by you and by history."

"[On the vote on the maxi-amendment of the Cirinnà bill] In the secret of the urn God sees you and Zanda and Renzi do not. [...] All those who say "yes" today go to Hell. There are no saints, eh! For tabulas. Just as Renzi will probably end up in Hell too, not only as a Catholic. For him it's a matter of time because you know that in Dante's Inferno there was a circle for each type. [...] the good Saint Peter will also go to see our electronic voting records [...] What is certain is that if [Renzi] has not yet gone to Hell it is not because he did not you deserve it. [...] They haven't yet made a group for}} the one who committed all the sins because it will be necessary to dig a hole so deep to put it in that even [...] I think that in the end [ ...] many many sins in the end really make a mess. I don't know, he will compete with Lucifer in placing the scale of values ​​in Hell. (from a speech in the Senate during the discussion of the Cirinnà bill, February 25, C.E.2016)"

"politics is theatre. When the curtain rises I do my part."

"If I hadn't brought the pig, they would have built the mosque in Bologna."

"I'm not xenophobic, but I say xenophobic things."

"[On Gay pride] I can't stand that, to defend their rights, homosexuals go to the streets looking like fagots."

"This may sound stupid, but I'm afraid I'll die before paying off the entire mortgage."

"Just as Borghezio has already been expelled from the parliamentary group he was a member of in Strasbourg, following the insults made against Kyenge, we expect the group of League senators to do the same towards Calderoli. It won't be much of a loss. And it will serve to re-establish in Italy too that European practice whereby racists are kept on the margins of institutions, also because the liberal and moderate right is the first to undertake not to give them space. (Gad Lerner)"

"I forgot everything: the annoyances, the mediocrities, the mistakes of my life; I even forgot "the Iliad" by Baricco, and the vast and incomprehensible obtuseness of the faces of Roberto Calderoli and Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. (Pietro Citati)"

"Minister Calderoli declares that the regionalization of education would be appropriate, a cultural bomb for the unity of the country, which will stop the social lift and worsen inequalities. (Ubaldo Pagano)"

"The verbal attack on Minister Cécile Kyenge, disguised as usual as a joke, was a premeditated act of racist violence. Calderoli knew well what he was doing. With his ignoble turn of phrase at the Treviglio rally he was looking for provocation, in a moment of maximum difficulty of the Northern League afflicted by a real hemorrhage of militants; and personal to him, given that from within they accused him of excessive moderation. (Gad Lerner)"

"The squalor of the father of the porcellum's statements about the Minister for Integration Cecile Kyenge is so evident as to advise against any type of comment, it will be said, to avoid amplification. But as absurd as it may seem, Calderoli's statements are a political act, the work of an experienced parliamentarian and exponent of a party that has played an important role in the worst atrocities of the last twenty years. It is therefore out of pure calculation that the representatives of the League - normally lumped together with the fascists of Forza Nuova - do not miss an opportunity to offend, always with racial arguments, Minister Kyenge. (Roberto Saviano)"

"For us it is important that there is a man like Roberto Calderoli, a guarantee in that Ministry to finally carry forward that path of autonomy that the citizens of Veneto and Lombardy had precisely voted for in a referendum. (Rebecca Frassini)"

"When the voice of the clock radio is that of Minister Calderoli, someone who not even Nostradamus could imagine in his most lugubrious quatrains. [...] It is then that, immediately, one would like to disconnect one's existence from that of others. Turning away and going back to sleep, as if those voices had just been a bad and mediocre dream. (Michele Serra)"