Italian EC nominee in new furore
An Italian minister nominated for a top job at the European Commission is in trouble for saying single mothers “aren’t very good”, only days after coming under fire for calling homosexuality a sin.
Rocco Buttiglione, Italy’s European affairs minister, a Catholic and friend of Pope John Paul II, has been nominated to be the European Union commissioner overseeing civil liberties and justice matters.
A European Parliament committee has concluded that Buttiglione is unfit for the job, and the Parliament as a whole is to vote later this month on whether to confirm all nominees to the new EU Commission.
“Buttiglione against single mamas,” read a front-page headline in Corriere della Sera, a Milan daily.
But the minister insisted that his remarks at a conference yesterday were taken out of context by Italian journalists.
At the conference, Buttiglione was quoted by reporters as saying that: “Children who have only a mother and no father are the children of a not very good mother.”
Buttiglione said that he was attempting to liken a professor’s phrase about US-European relations to relations in a family where the children have a mother and a father.
“I was talking about relations between the United States and Europe, certainly not about single mothers, to whom I give all my support,” the Italian news agency ANSA quoted Buttiglione as saying.
Buttiglione is sticking to his views on homosexuality despite the flap over his nomination to the EU job and said he would renounce the post if it came to that rather than alter his Catholic beliefs.
“I feel at peace with my conscience,” Buttiglione said.
Earlier this month, Buttiglione told the EU parliament’s justice and home affairs committee that he considered homosexuality a sin and that marriage was intended “to allow women to have children and to have protection of a male”.
