So, yesterday I headed off to the ‘Everybody in PACS’ demo. It had been the subject of huge polemic in the papers: denounced by the right and by the pope. And not just by the right: Prodi too declared himself ‘upset’ at the fact that there were to be (symbolic) gay weddings, and one Margherita politician described it as the way to lose the election.
In the piazza you had, on the one hand, the accoutrements of your typical British gay pride event: a giant sound system pumping out DiscoPartyRemix, an impressive drag queen and some particularly well-turned out coppers. But what was strikingly different was the number of political banners: lots of Young Socialists (the DS youth section); Rifondazione; the PdCI; Greens. I’d say the majority of people in the piazza were with one party or another. And the weddings were between, mainly, long-standing out gay party politicos – not major national figures, but members of regional or local councils and the like. For all the TV crews and all the polemic, PACS is not – at least it wasn’t yesterday – an issue which is pulling in the punters.
Sounds interesting. The annual pride march here in Dublin tends to have a left presence consisting only of Labour Youth and Socialist Youth (the Labour and Socialist Party youth wings unsurprisingly). It's not the most political event in the world, perhaps surprisingly in a country where male gay sex was illegal until fairly recently.
On another note, have you tried going along to any meetings of left groups (as opposed to campaign meetings) over there yet? I have to admit that I'm curious about what a Rifondazione branch meeting or nearest equivalent is like, having only been to much bigger things.