Gay fashion icons Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, founders of the luxury Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana, recently gave an interview in which they discussed their views on the family. The most fascinating quote was, when asked if they would ever marry, Gabbana answered: “No, never. How can I swear to love and be faithful to one person forever? I never believed in marriage heterosexual or homosexual. It's a promise you cannot keep.” Unlike the recent shift in gay-think towards a scrubbed-up monogamous and domestically dull image of the gay male couple – the middle-aged Gabbana has taken homosexuality back to its 1970s Sodom and Gomorrah roots – that of excess and hedonism; in the same interview Gabbana stated, regarding death and old age: “I would not want to end my life on a bed, better to die while dancing in the disco.” This is honesty unseen in the media since the post-AIDS era.
Despite their success in the fashion world and consequently raising the visibility of homosexual men and gay male couples everywhere, in this same interview, Gabbana said something that caused a world-wide backlash from gay men and their celebrity sympathizers; regarding the gay male penchant for test-tube babies, Gabbana said: “I’m skeptical of chemical offsprings and rented wombs, chosen from a catalogue. Life has a natural course…There are things that should not be changed, and one of these is the family.” Although that answer has gotten the most attention, what Dolce later said, I think is more important: “I’m gay, I cannot have a child. I believe that we cannot have everything in life…It is also good to deprive yourself of something. Life has its natural course; there are things that must not be changed. And one of these is the family.”
Both Dolce and Gabbana are Italian, raised in Catholic homes, unlike the WASP-ish Elton John, who became immediately outraged after getting word of the interview; their attitudes are less stridently political – therefore, their persona less incumbent upon an acceptance neuroses that pervades much of homosexuality. A Catholic upbringing, even if abandoned, still leaves a small mustard seed of faith; this was also evidenced in the autobiography of gay Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli who wrote: “I believe totally in the teachings of the [Catholic] Church and this means admittedly that my way of life is sinful…I see no reason for the Church to bend to the easy solution of changing its age-old morality to suit the promiscuity of our day.” What these men have reached is sort of sad and uncomfortable stalemate between their homosexuality and their deep consideration that Catholicism is inconvenient, but true. You see this push and pull struggle in the Dolce & Gabbana adverts that are sometimes beautifully conceived with Catholic religious imagery, but then become grossly pornographic.
Yet, current gay Western philosophy is Protestant based and highly puritanical; it seeks out courts and laws for salvation – it needs words (Sola scriptura) of comfort and acceptance from big-government: replacing the condemnation and rejection they got from their fathers. Especially in children raised with a devoid of religion, there is no alternative route to peace: it’s all or nothing. For this reason, homosexuals quickly resort to bullying and threats; they reenact the abuse they experienced on the school athletic field. Those that reject them, they demonize: seeing critics’ lack of approval as based on hate, not on any actual religious or moral tradition. They rally and berate – until, the day which will never arrive – they feel that everyone loves them. It’s a process hinged on doubt. There is no authority, even in the forgotten background – all that survives is the hurt.