Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
An Italian Catholic doctor has been acquitted of charges brought against her by LGBT activists who accused her of defaming their community after she published a Facebook post declaring homosexuality a “health hazard.”
LifeSiteNews is reporting on the case involving Dr. Silvana De Mari, 64, a medical doctor, psychotherapist and children’s author. De Mari is well-known for her outspoken stance on the health risks of homosexual behavior and her fierce opposition to the kind of political correctness that relentlessly tries to silence her.
The case at hand involved a Facebook post in which Dr. De Mari cited the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in the LGBT community.
“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,” she wrote in the post. “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.”
As a result of the post, an LGBT activist group known as Torino Pride accused De Mari of defaming homosexuals and promptly filed suit.
In the meantime, the post also sparked a rash of media interviews in which De Mari continued to stand her ground on the medical aspects of the issue and also against the suppression of her right to free speech.
“The point is that I should have the right as a medical doctor to say that certain homosexual practices are causing diseases without being sued by the LGBT movement and without having to appear in court,” she said in an interview with O Clarim.com. “I should have the right to prevent proponents from the LGBT movement going inside schools saying that those practices are nice and good, because this is false.”
De Mari has also gone on the record to condemn pedophilia. She told the Catholic daily La Croce that, “Pedophilia is expanding, and the victims are always younger and younger.”
She added: “Do you see what is happening today with our total indifference? 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.”
De Mari has also been a vocal critic of the lack of backbone in the medical community when it comes to voicing the facts about the health hazards associated with these immoral behaviors.
“This only shows that we are all afraid and with downcast eyes in front of the LGBT movement, who decides what we can say and what we cannot say. I don’t want to live like this. You can do what you want with your life, I am not concerned about that. But my freedom of speech is the most important thing.”
Apparently, the Italian Public Prosecutor agreed and ruled that De Mari’s Facebook statements did not comprise defamation since it would be impossible to identify the defamed parties.
Although it is good that justice was served in Dr. De Mari’s case, she already won in the eyes of many women in the world who were inspired by her courage and moral strength as she continued to stand up for the truth regardless of the mounting opposition.
She used her right to free speech not to defame but to warn members of the LGBT community about the health hazards they all know exist – but refuse to talk about for fear of making their lifestyle appear unhealthy in the public eye. This isn’t loving the members of the LGBT community; it’s imposing an ideology at the expense of the health of their own members.
As our Full of Grace study teaches, De Mari’s maternal instinct to nurture and care for people at risk for serious and even life-threatening diseases is a brilliant example of the feminine genius at work in our world today.
She should be applauded for showing us how to love even those who hate us, regardless of the cost.
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