'Cerno has inverted tastes', Vannacci-Rai clash

The fuse is the protected end to "gender and homosexualist propaganda". The battlefield becomes Rai and, in the end, even the dictionary appears. Roberto Vannacci and Tommaso Cerno give each other a thorough beating, until the Viale Mazzini Board of Directors intervenes in the duel to act as a barrier: the "inverted tastes" evoked by the general against the director of the Giornale and host on Rai2 with '2 of Spades' are "offensive and discriminatory".

Vannacci doesn't back down and reverses the accusation: "Maybe it's Rai that wants to censor me."

The back and forth had begun in recent days on one of the identity points of the National Future programme.

"Vannacci said that, being homosexual, I should go to the protected zone? Dear general, protection comes from freedom", Cerno had sunk. The reply slips into the personal. The director of the newspaper, claims Vannacci, "invented" that Futuro Nazionale wants to prevent homosexuals from appearing on TV. Then the sentence that sets the case on fire: "I don't know if those with inverted tastes have the license to spout bigger nonsense than those with normal tastes." And he adds: Cerno, "who declares he has an erotic preference for boys", already has a lot of space, even on Rai.

Enough to call into question Viale Mazzini, who recalls how sexual orientation cannot become a weapon to "delegitimize a person or their professional role" and defines the words used by the FnV leader as "unacceptable".

Vannacci "insultes me because it doesn't stand up to comparison on the merits", Cerno counterattacks, with a jab at alliances: "I understand now why he votes with the left". A broad front is formed around the journalist: "dissent and confrontation can never justify personal attacks", highlights Ignazio La Russa, Della Vedova (+Europa) denounces a "reactionary charge of discrimination", the sovereignist Marco Rizzo speaks of "homophobic discrimination". Stefania Craxi (FI) brands the words as "unspeakable", Michaela Biancofiore recalls article 3 of the Constitution and Ilaria Cavo (Noi Moderati) chooses satire: the "vannacciate" seem like "a caricature of Borat".

“No offense to Sacha Baron Cohen,” he specifies.

But the general, reached by the controversy all the way to Brussels, shows off his Latin. "De gustibus non est disputandum", he recalls, and then carries out the exegesis: "'Inverted' means turning or directing in the opposite direction, talking about inversion does not mean discriminating. Perhaps the Rai Board of Directors should use the dictionary better". And he returns to his programme: "We talk about protecting children": if at school, he claims, there must be no "gender propaganda", "we are saying that it should be like this on TV too".