Lisa Bourne
December 4, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – An Italian Catholic doctor accused by LGBT activists of defamation after she highlighted in a Facebook post the skyrocketing rates of sexually transmitted disease among homosexuals has been found not guilty.
LGBT group Torino Pride had made the accusation against Dr. Silvana De Mari, alleging that in declaring homosexuality a “health hazard” she had defamed homosexuals.
De Mari, a surgeon and psychotherapist, was acquitted on the grounds that it would be impossible to ascertain who would have suffered injury because of her broad statement. De Mari said in her defense that it was clear that homosexuality was not a normal condition, referencing her own expertise, Breitbart reports.
“I have three specialties: psychotherapy, medicine and surgery,” she said. “I have been taking care of homosexual persons for 40 years.”
De Mari had stated in her original Facebook post:
The recent numerous epidemics of primary-secondary syphilis registered especially in Western Europe have as main risk factors: homosexuality (45–90%). … As confirmed by literature, the co-infection of syphilis-HIV in homosexuals goes from 10% to 70% in many clinical studies. … While we wait until the authors of these studies are accused of homophobia and expelled from their respective medical boards, we need to acknowledge that if the health hazard involved in male homo-erotic behavior is serious now, we can only imagine what it was like before antibiotics and condoms. …
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The Italian Public Prosecutor ruled De Mari’s statements did not comprise defamation since it would be impossible to identify the defamed parties, the decision coming after months of deliberation.
De Mari, a 64-year-old doctor, psychotherapist and children’s author, had stated her theory on homosexuality publicly before, often in an uncompromising fashion.
But her stance became more of an issue after a Facebook post she made in January of this year on the disturbing rates of sexually transmitted diseases among active homosexuals.
The post prompted a call for an interview from Italian radio show La Zanzara,according to a Church Militant report, followed by heated response and two follow-up interviews.
In the course of speaking with the radio station, De Mari forthrightly discussed threats to freedom of speech from the LGBT movement and spoke in further detail about the serious damage homosexual acts do to the human body. She’d said as well that, “gays live a tragic condition.”
De Mari has also condemned pedophilia, telling the Catholic daily La Croce around the same time earlier his year that, “Pedophilia is expanding, and the victims are always younger and younger.”
“Do you see what is happening today with our total indifference?” she queried. “Mankind has gone from papal infallibility to the infallibility of the American Psychiatric Association. If they establish that homosexuality isn’t a disorder of nature, they can very well establish that neither is pedophilia.”
LGBT activists accused De Mari of instigating social hatred and homophobia.
An Italian association of LGBT lawyers and activists demanded De Mari’s suspension from the Torino Board of Physicians for “employing her skills against the right of homosexual patients.” An online petition supported the demand, and the Board of Physicians would begin disciplinary action against her in January.
De Mari’s Facebook page was also blocked, and LGBT activists contacted her editor to get her dismissed.
Word then surfaced in mid-March of the defamation investigation.
The lawyer representing Torino Pride in the complaint against De Mari, Nicolò Ferraris, has maintained De Mari had no right to state an idea that many people find offensive.
“The offenses pronounced publicly by De Mari are aimed at LGBT movements and not only at LGBT people,” he said, “and they are not opinions but offenses.”
