WELL, THEY ARE ALL SOCCER FANS...:

Italian minister claims Brussels is being run by homosexual majority (Richard Owen, 10/13/04, Times of London)

EMBARRASSMENT in Italy over the rejection of its new “anti-gay” Commissioner by the European Parliament was compounded yesterday when a Government minister said the decision showed that Europe was dominated by “bum boys”.

Mirko Tremaglia, the Minister for Italians Abroad, said in a statement issued on official government notepaper: “Unfortunately Buttiglione has lost” — a reference to the European Parliament’s refusal to confirm Rocco Buttiglione as the European Justice Commissioner during recent hearings. He added: “Poor Europe — the culattoni are in the majority”.

As a furore broke over his words, Signor Tremaglia, 77, said that he was referring merely to the power of the “gay lobby” in Europe, but had translated the term into “plain Italian”.

“I am a country boy from Bergamo,” he said. “That’s how they express themselves in my part of the world.”

The word culattoni derives from culo, meaning “arse” or “rump”.

You'd think they'd have allowed admittance to Buttiglione.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 14, 2004 2:25 PM