Italians play gay to avoid army service

[kskiska]

It is not the sort of trick you would expect the stereotypical Italian male to pull.

But when it comes to dodging the draft, machismo goes out of the window.

Exploiting a provision which bars gays from military service, more than 150 men are thought to have paid two doctors for certificates diagnosing them as suffering from "sexual anxieties" and being "incompatible" with the stress of living together in dormitories and using communal bathrooms.

Doctors at Padua military hospital rumbled the scam when they noticed the unusual number of gay men coming from a small area in northern Italy in the Alto Adige region, near the Austrian border.

A police investigation found that several of them had girlfriends or wives.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1155425,00.html

[bluestateguy]

1. Just wait until Bush brings back the draft in 2005

If he's elected, of course. Then you'll see the Pentagon's policy come right back to bite them in the ass. I don't envy the draft boards charged with the responsibility of investigating whether or not someone is gay or not.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Kind of like our youth did in the Sixties

[Gildor Inglorion]

2. Italy has a draft?

Wow...I had no idea.

[Exultant Democracy]

3. If the Italian government wants to have bigoted laws and a draft

then they got what was coming to them.

[Bozita]

4. So much for the "Coalition of the Willing"

haha

[varun]

6. despite the ban on gay servicemembers in American military...

...during the times of war, the US military stops discriminating against gay people...


maybe Italian military can take some lessons on hypocrisy from their American counterpart.

[private_ryan]

5. I'd pick being called gay anytime over Iraq.

n/t

[PartyPooper]

7. Well, I thought the Italians, British, Germans, Dutch, Israelis,

Canadians, Australians, et. al.-all allowed gays in the military.

Every western country in the world-but, the U.S.! Whoda' thunk otherwise? Certainly, not me!

:silly: