ABSTRACT
In October 2004, the Italian Minister for Italians Abroad, Mirko Tremaglia, commented the defeat of Rocco Buttiglione at the European Parliament by publicly stating: “Poor Europe. The fags are in the majority.” Unsurprisingly, his statement solicited a wave of protests. Would the reaction have been the same had Tremaglia used a neutral term such as “gay” or “homosexual”? Most likely, the outrage against Tremaglia’s claim had little to do with the content of his statement (however inaccurate and polemic), but rather with the disparaging and offensive nature of the group label (fag) used in his utterance.
