Rosario Crocetta, of the left-leaning Italian Partito Democratico, became the first openly gay governor of Sicily following his election last Sunday.
Crocetta was the first openly gay mayor in Italy after he was outed during his run for office in Gela by his right-wing opponent in 2003. Crocetta, however, is Italy’s second openly gay governor, after Nichi Vendola, who was elected governor of Apulia in 2005 and is positioned to become the next leader of Italy as head of the Left Ecology Party.
Despite being openly gay, according to Gay Star News, LGBT rights won’t be a focus for Crocetta, who says “chastity is the best way of life for a politician”:
He won the election leading a coalition with the Union of Christian Democrats, a centrist party very close to the Catholic Church. And during the electoral campaign, Crocetta reassured his allies, saying: ‘In case of victory, I will say goodbye to sex and sexuality, I’ll be married only to Sicily and to Sicilians’.
The new governor won Sicily’s election with more than 30% of the votes, defeating the right-wing Popolo delle Libertà, which has governed the Italian island for the last decade. Funny enough, Crocetta’s own party, Partito Democratico, didn’t want him representing them in his 2003 mayoral run because he was gay.
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But since he was “chaste,” at the time, we guess they got over it.
Scott Rose
Did you ever hear of a heterosexual politician making a campaign promise not to have sex?