Giorgia Meloni, leader of the populist Brothers of Italy (FdI), has slammed leftists in her country, claiming they use LGBT people as “human shields” to push their agenda.
Meloni, who has become one of the most popular political leaders in Italy in recent months, voiced her opposition to part of the anti-homophobia bill known as the Zan bill, which was presented by leftist Democratic Party (PD) member and LGBT activist Alessandro Zan and his stirred controversy with many, including the Vatican.
The FdI leader slammed the left, saying they were “making political battle on the skin of gays and lesbians” and added that the left were using “the most fragile as human shields to do something else,” newspaper Il Giornale reports.
Meloni added that there were many LGBT people in Italy who “do not like to be used and be the object of propaganda.”
Both Meloni and her ally Matteo Salvini, of the League (Lega) party, have stated that they reject the Zan bill in its current form, with Salvini stating that he rejects the teaching of gender ideology in schools and what he called “crimes of opinion” from being created as a result of the bill.
The Roman Catholic Church has also expressed concern about the bill, claiming that it could violate the 1929 Lateran treaty that granted independence to the Vatican as a sovereign state.
The President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, spoke out about the bill, stating: “I think that in the ordinary Italian legal system, there is already everything that is needed to firmly combat any form of discrimination”.
Paglia added that the bill was not the way forward: “It’s more of a manifesto, and as a manifesto, it’s fine, but if you have to translate it into legislative language, it must be precisely written.”