“On 7 September 2024 the much-heralded Gay Pride arrives in Lucca and as expected the first complaints arrive immediately and this is nothing new. Unfortunately, the fact that in Lucca there is a tendency to generalize even the crudest of thoughts, passing it off as shared by everyone, is also nothing new. And here we are reading flyers saying ‘Lucca doesn’t want you!’”. On the controversies that arose over the Toscana Pride in Lucca speaks with Giada Paolini, tourist guide from Lucca, one of the founders of the Lucca movement for the environmentwhich presented itself in the last two municipal elections, the first time as Lucca for the environment, the second as Environment and social justice.
“But which Lucca? I – explains Paolini – the I want Gay Pride and I’m proud that Lucca was chosen, as are most of the people I know, as well as the exponents of the movement we created at the time, Lucca per l’Ambiente. And instead I have to go around my city and see it infected and infested by these flyers who also speak in my name, without my having given consent or been consulted.”
“’Lucca, we read in the leaflets – continues quoting Paolini – is firmly linked to its Catholic roots and traditional family values’. And here the tourist guide in me, who feeds on the history of Lucca, puts his hands in his hair. Do we want to do a nice historical excursus to see the origins of Lucca? Lucca, understood as a set of settlements, most likely has Etruscan origins. The Etruscans are very well-known Catholics, just think, Christianity didn’t exist yet and they were already following it. In the 2nd BC Lucca was founded by the Romans as a winter military camp. Indeed, who is more Christian Catholic than the Romans? Lucca was so Catholic that in the mid-1500s, when the word ‘inquisition’ (and be careful, just the word, the inquisitors in the city didn’t even set foot in it) arrived in Lucca, the most influential families of Lucca, producers and traders of silk , they leave the city because they are all Protestants. If you want to use history to support homophobic thoughts, at least study it. Lucca has always been homophobic, and unfortunately there is no doubt about this, just look at all the various laws and city statutes starting from 1448, but Catholic roots have nothing to do with it. The writer Cesare Garboli explains the reason well in a 2001 article: more than death, Lucca fears scandals, news, changes. One could also refute the idea of the traditional family, but it can all be found in the Bible, which should be read and known, but above all understood, before waving it as a flag-bearer of retrograde ideas. I conclude by saying that it’s true, some people in Lucca don’t want Gay Pride, but many others do.”
: “Whoever doesn’t want Gay Pride should not expose the city’s alleged Catholic roots”){kind=link}