An appeals court in the city
of Brescia upheld a sentence for discrimination against a lawyer
who said in a 2013 radio interview that gays are "unnatural".
Carlo Taormina, an MP for Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia
(FI) party from 1996 to 2007 and a former interior ministry
undersecretary, in October 2013 told La Zanzara (The Mosquito)
radio show that homosexuals "are against nature" and that he
would never hire a gay person.
"I select my employees to make sure that never happens," he
added.
A court of first instance in August last year ordered him to
pay 10,000 euros in damages to the Lawyers Association for LGBT
Rights-Lenford Network, which is named after a murdered HIV
rights activist, and which brought the discrimination suit
against him.
The appeals court upheld that sentence, and ordered the
lawyer to also publish the sentence on Corriere della Sera
newspaper at his own expense.
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