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Once Lovers now Homophobes Dolce and Gabbana turncoats | See updated pictures from protest below

By Melanie Nathan, March 17, 2015.

Dolce & Gabbana have not heard the last of LGBTI global community wrath.  Activists in the United Kingdom are calling for a London Boycott D&G picket which will be held at their Old Bond Street store.

The Out and Proud Diamond Group, a global group which helps LGBTI asylum seekers and the Peter Tatchell Foundation are supporting the international boycott of Dolce and Gabbana and holding a protest outside their flagship London store, 6-8 Old Bond Street, London W1S 4PH, this Thursday 19 March from 1-2pm.

According to several activists in the UK, the billionaire designers are pandering to the Vatican and the far right, while aligning themselves with anti-gay, anti-same-sex relationship homophobia, which hurts LGBTI people and same-sex families around the world.

The protest is in response to the fashion designers insulting slurs against same-sex parents and their children who use IVF and fertility treatments as a method to conceive and have children.

Speaking to the Italian magazine Panorama, alongside his business partner, Stefano Gabbana, Domenico Dolce said children should be born to a mother and a father:

“The only family is a traditional one. I’m not convinced by those I call the chemical children, synthetic babies…They are wombs for hire, semen chosen from a catalogue … psychiatrists are not ready to confront the effects of this experimentation.”

Stefano Gabbana added:

“The family is not a fad.” In 2006, he told the Daily Mail: “I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents.”

Both designers have in the past strongly opposed same-sex marriage.

A huge international outcry followed after Sir Elton John, the father of two boys with husband David Furnish, took umbrage with the remarks, noting on Instagram:

“How dare you refer to my beautiful children as ‘synthetic,'” he wrote, adding, “And shame on you for wagging your judgmental little fingers at IVF – a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfil their dream of having children. Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana”

An organizer of the protest, Edwin Sesange, director of the LGBT Out and Proud Diamond Group, noted:

“Please join us in sending a clear message to Dolce and Gabbana that same-sex families are loving, happy families. This issue is not about same-sex families alone but also about the many straight families who have benefited from fertility treatment. Dolce and Gabbana’s statements add to the stigma, shame, prejudice, rejection and intolerance often suffered by same-sex parents and their children. They should withdraw their statements and apologise.”

Peter Tatchell noted:

“Dolce and Gabbana are entitled to their views but we are entitled to protest against them. We urge everyone – gay and straight – to boycott their clothes. “It’s intolerable for these designers to make millions out of the gay community and then turn around and insult our families. They’ve stabbed us in the back. Dolce and Gabbana have been exploiting the gay market for decades. Having made their millions, they seem happy to trash loving, responsible same-sex parents and their children.

While one cannot forget how this also hurts all families, including straight families using IVF to conceive, or creating our families any way we choose, one must remember that because both Dolce and Gabbana are themselves gay men, once in a relationship together, turncoat style homophobia makes a great platform for the enemies of same-sex couples and all LGBTI people. In essence they have become aligned with homophobes who seek to deny LGBTI people their rights and others who embrace the criminalization of homosexuality. (Melanie Nathan)

Lets see if other communities will follow with similar actions. In the meantime I fully endorse the protest and the ongoing Boycotts of all Dolce and Gabbana products.  #BOYCOTTD&G #BoycottDolceGabbana #TURNcoats

Melanie Nathan ([email protected])

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Updated Thursday 19th 2015.

Sixty protesters rallied outside Dolce and Gabbana’s flagship London store in Old Bond Street at lunchtime today – the protest was a huge success, according to protestors who mentioned passersby were extremely supportive.

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, noted:

“We hope today’s picket will inspire similar protests at D&G stores worldwide. We want to send a message to Dolce and Gabbana, and to all homophobes everywhere, that bigotry has a price. They cannot expect to get away with disrespecting same-sex couples and their children. Their comments are not only an attack on same-sex parents but on all parents who’ve had children with the aid of fertility treatment, including thousands of heterosexual couples.”

Update Pictures from the protest held today can be seen here.

Thanks for Photos to Peter Tatchell  Foundation and Out and proud Diamond Group. PHOTOS of the protest: http://bit.ly/1H6jp9A
Free use, no charge. Please credit: Peter Tatchell Foundation

Side note:

According to organizers:  “Professor Susan Golombok of the Centre for Family Research at Cambridge University is the world expert on same-sex families. She’s been studying them since 1976. Her latest research is in her new book, Modern Families, published last week. Surveying studies worldwide spanning four decades, she found that children with same-sex parents flourish, despite the stigma they sometimes face,”  See: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/families-with-a-difference-the-reality-behind-the-hype