Boycott D&G and picket their Old Bond Street store
Billionaire designers pander to Vatican, far right & homophobes
New research shows that kids with gay parents do well in life
London – 17 March 2015
The Out and Proud Diamond Group 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.
We urge you to join us – and to share and tweet details of the protest to all your friends.
The protest is in response to the fashion designers insulting slurs against same-sex parents and their 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.
LGBT rights and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation and co-organiser of Thursday’s protest, said:
“It is hypocritical for Stefano Gabbana to oppose gay parents, given that in 2006 he expressed a desire to have a child via artificial insemination and surrogacy. He’s guilty of double standards. Gabbana wanted for himself what he now condemns other gay men for wanting.
“These 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.
“Dolce and Gabbana are echoing ill-informed, outdated and homophobic prejudices about gay parents. Research spanning 40 years shows that children bought up by gay mums and dads are just as happy and well-adjusted as those from traditional heterosexual families. The key to a child’s welfare is the love of their parents, not the parent’s sexual orientation.
“They are playing into the hands of the Vatican and far right political parties that oppose gay families, said Mr Tatchell.
Co-organiser of the protest, Edwin Sesange, director of the LGBT Out and Proud Diamond Group, added:
“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.”
Mr Tatchell concluded:
“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.
“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,” said Mr Tatchell.
See: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/families-with-a-difference-the-reality-behind-the-hype