New ‘hetero pride’ campaign launches in Italy
A heterosexual pride organisation has launched in Italy, and plans to hold its first gathering next month.
Etero Pride launched last month in Tuscany, inviting interested straight people to take part in “Europe’s first straight pride,” in May.
The campaign aims to “challenge mass media and the world of communications in general”, and to show the world that the idea that “heterosexuals have no issues or needs” is wrong.
The straight pride event will include football, boxing, rugby and beach volleyball tournaments, straight zumba classes and a beauty pageant which will crown a ‘Mr and Miss Straight.’
Those include but are not limited to: Straight soccer tournaments, straight boxing, straight rugby, straight beach volleyball and straight zumba classes. There will also be a beauty contest that will crown a Miss and Mr Straight.
According to its website: “The birth of Gay Pride made room and time to debate both internal and external institutions. These days homosexuality is widely and constantly discussed, but the same cannot be said about heterosexuality.
“Heterosexuality is perceived as something obvious and predictable. This attitude is wrong. Actually, very wrong. Heterosexuals, which according to official figures account for 92.5 percent of the global population, are taken for granted by mass-media as well as society’s institutions, who seem convinced that heterosexuals have no issues or needs. That is absolutely untrue.”
Etero Pride also plans to launch a television and radio station, and a magazine called l’Etero.
In an interview with Vice Magazine, Giuliano Visalli, the campaign’s founder said: “We did some research and we found out we are the first in Europe to try out such a thing.”
He went on to say “heterosexuality is taken for granted,” and said he had approached LGBT organisations for advice and guidance on organising the event.
Describing the events plans as ” a mix between May Day and Gay Pride”, and that he founded it because he detected an “uneasiness among straight people about their own heterosexuality.”
“We want to speak about straight people’s problems,” he went on, but unlike other straight pride organisations, said his was not opposed to gay rights. He even described gay pride as “super cool.”
Visalli was apparently unaware of anti-gay campaign group Straight Pride UK which in August used US copyright law to remove an article showing it supports homophobic laws on a British student blogger’s website.
Straight Pride UK has deleted its website and Twitter accounts since the original incident took place.
