Online battle worries activists
MILAN — On Twitter, it’s a playing out as battle of the hashtags — #boycottdolcegabbana versus #boycotteltonjohn.
But gay rights activists say there is more at stake than Dolce&Gabbana’s brand image and bottom line. They say the fashion designers’ comments expressing skepticism about conceiving children through in vitro fertilization and bearing them through surrogates undermine the fight for recognition of gay and lesbian families in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy.
“They have done real damage to the cause just as a law on gay rights is in parliament,” said Franco Grillini, a former lawmaker and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy’s largest gay organization. “Obviously, everyone can have their own opinions, even mistaken ones. But if a homosexual says the traditional family is privileged and renounces having a child and getting married, then he is a homosexual with a strong internalized homophobia.”
Elton John, whose two children were born through a surrogate mother, has rallied a starstudded battle call against Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the designers behind the 25-year-old label, after they endorsed traditional families with a mother and a father in an interview with the Italian magazine Panorama. The designers are gay and were in a relationship for more than two decades.
“I am not convinced by what I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Uteruses for rent, semen chosen from a catalogue. And then, go and explain to these children who the mother is,” Dolce was quoted by Panorama as saying.
The designers later said the comments were not meant to judge others’ choices and that they recognized the legitimacy of non-traditional families, but that did little to quell the social media firestorm.
More than 67,000 tweets have been sent containing the hashtag #boycottdolcegabbana, getting a turbo-boost from John’s social media post expressing outrage that his children had been labeled “synthetic,” followed by endorsements from celebrities including Ricky Martin and Victoria Beckham. Courtney Love vowed to burn her Dolce&Gabbana garb and Martina Navrativola pledged to toss her D&G shirts in the garbage.
Soon the competing #boycotteltonjohn hashtag appeared, winning support from both social conservatives and free-speech advocates. More than 3,900 tweets have included #boycotteltonjohn, according to Topsy.com, which measures hashtag use.
Gay rights activists fear the designers’ have given comfort to conservatives who have undermined efforts to have gay marriage legalized in Italy.