Dolce & Gabbana Bal Harbour (Credit: Phillip Pessar, via Wikimedia Commons).
Is a very late apology better than none at all? That appears to be the question when it comes to how the LGBT community will respond to the latest from Italian fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have taken advantage of an interview with Voguemagazine to apologize for controversial comments the pair made in an interview with Italian magazine Panorama in March about their opposition to gay adoptions and in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Dolce had previously referred to children born via IVF as “synthetic children,” sparking outrage from a number of celebrities, including singer Elton John, who had two children born via IVF with his husband, David Furnish. Dolce & Gabbana’s comments John to call for a boycott of the fashion line, and other activists to hold demonstrations outside their stores.
In the Vogue interview, Dolce adopts a somewhat conciliatory tone, telling writer Sarah Mower he understands how much his comments hurt people.
“I’ve done some soul-searching,” he says. “I’ve talked to Stefano a lot about this. I’ve realized that my words were inappropriate, and I apologize. They are just kids.”
Dolce also says he doesn’t know everything about IVF, but acknowledges that people should choose for themselves how to shape their families, saying “I love it when people are happy.”
But Dolce also says that choices available to other gay men and women are not an option for him personally, citing his devout Catholicism.
In that same interview, Gabbana also shares that he previously considered becoming a father, but was stymied because of Italy’s prohibition on both same-sex marriage and single-parent adoption, as well as Italy’s cumbersome rules governing adoption from other countries.
“I had thought of going to California and having a baby, but I couldn’t bring the baby back to Italy, because you need the mother’s passport,” Gabbana says. “I asked about adoption in Italy. It’s very hard for a straight couple here — imagine if you are gay!”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg smacked down Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance with a simple message: Stop talking about other people's families.
Appearing on CNN's "The Source" with Kaitlan Collins, Buttigieg responded to past comments in which the Republican asserted that prominent Democrats -- including Buttigieg, Vice President Kamala Harris, and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- shouldn't be allowed to set policy if they don't have children of their own.
"We're effectively run in this country...by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too," Vance told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a 2021 interview, clips of which have been circulating since the Ohio senator was tapped as Donald Trump's running mate.
The Vatican has excommunicated the notoriously right-wing and homophobic Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.
Vigano served as the church’s ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2016, a position that was seen as a demotion following ongoing disagreements with Pope Francis.
Pope Francis has offered a measure of support for same-sex couples, though the Vatican recently issued an apology following reports the pope used a vulgar, anti-gay epithet.
Some have suggested that the Argentine pope, whose first language is Spanish, may simply have erred while speaking Italian.
Thailand's Senate voted to approve a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, putting the country on the cusp of becoming the first in Southeast Asia to enact such a law.
The bill changes references in current law from gender-specific terms like “man,” “woman,” husband,” and “wife” to gender-neutral terms.
It recognizes the inheritance rights of one partner following the other partner’s death, regardless of gender, and grants same-sex couples the right to adopt.
The bill was previously approved in March by a vote of 400-10 in the country's lower house of parliament. On Tuesday, June 18, the Senate passed it 130-4, with 18 members abstaining.
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Is a very late apology better than none at all? That appears to be the question when it comes to how the LGBT community will respond to the latest from Italian fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have taken advantage of an interview with Vogue magazine to apologize for controversial comments the pair made in an interview with Italian magazine Panorama in March about their opposition to gay adoptions and in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Dolce had previously referred to children born via IVF as “synthetic children,” sparking outrage from a number of celebrities, including singer Elton John, who had two children born via IVF with his husband, David Furnish. Dolce & Gabbana’s comments John to call for a boycott of the fashion line, and other activists to hold demonstrations outside their stores.
In the Vogue interview, Dolce adopts a somewhat conciliatory tone, telling writer Sarah Mower he understands how much his comments hurt people.
“I’ve done some soul-searching,” he says. “I’ve talked to Stefano a lot about this. I’ve realized that my words were inappropriate, and I apologize. They are just kids.”
Dolce also says he doesn’t know everything about IVF, but acknowledges that people should choose for themselves how to shape their families, saying “I love it when people are happy.”
But Dolce also says that choices available to other gay men and women are not an option for him personally, citing his devout Catholicism.
In that same interview, Gabbana also shares that he previously considered becoming a father, but was stymied because of Italy’s prohibition on both same-sex marriage and single-parent adoption, as well as Italy’s cumbersome rules governing adoption from other countries.
“I had thought of going to California and having a baby, but I couldn’t bring the baby back to Italy, because you need the mother’s passport,” Gabbana says. “I asked about adoption in Italy. It’s very hard for a straight couple here — imagine if you are gay!”
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