# Gay Attitudes in rural Italy



## 2guys

Hi,
We've searched the forum and can't find anything that answers our questions. We are a married gay couple. One is retired and the other will be within a year. We are seriously considering moving to Italy for our retirement. We've seen a good bit about the relative acceptance of LGBT people in Italy but it seems to apply mostly to the large cities. We are especially interested in the small medieval villages with populations around 500-1000. We've been particularly drawn to Basilicata but we've also found attractive places in Liguria and Piedmont. We realize that rural people can be much more conservative than city dwellers.

So our questions are:

What are the attitudes among rural Italians toward gay people? Is there likely to be open hostility?

Are there some regions that are better than others?

thanks for any help or advice.


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## Cricetino

If you live the normal life of adult or elderly married people no one will care about you.
Yes, rural people are more conservative than city dwellers, but their conservatism has noting to do with religion like in America. Italy nowadays is basically an agnostic country, and only 10% of people attends church, and most of them are elderly who attends the church more as a social meeting than as something they do out of faith. And about 8 every 10 catholic priest is gay (there are statistics about that), so they are not going to indoctrinate their barely alive old parishioners with anti-gay sermons like some evangelical pastor in USA. Conservatism here means to stick to their habits about food, taking their nap after noon and not be disturbed by loud music in the night or during meridian nap. Even politics is little involved in this kind of "conservatism", since on the political side is all about being against poor immigrants from third world who creates problems like begging on the streets outside the supermarkets or getting drunk with cheap wine in the public parks. So once one is not a threat to their way of life that is centered about food and sleep and public decor of the cities and the parks, every will be ok.
You, as Americans with some money, in those small economically depressed towns, are more likely to be seen with sympathy, since you are going to be two clients more for the local café, restaurant or pizzeria and for the construction craftsman (if you are going to do some renovation in your house).


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## PKJL86

Thank you so much for this information. We are a married gay couple (and parents) from Boston, US.

we are both of Italian decent (Campagna) and are very interested in retiring in Italy.

Is there any parts of Italy that are more favorable for a gay couple?

Thank you.


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## LorenzoVerdelegna

PKJL86 said:


> Thank you so much for this information. We are a married gay couple (and parents) from Boston, US.
> 
> we are both of Italian decent (Campagna) and are very interested in retiring in Italy.
> 
> Is there any parts of Italy that are more favorable for a gay couple?
> 
> Thank you.


Bagni Di Lucca and the villages surrounding it have many, many, many gay couples. In Benabbio alone, a village of only a few hundred has a gay male couple living openly and has had an openly gay female couple living openly for a long time. Also there are many people who fly under the radar a bit. Get in touch with me if you're worried and I can put you in touch with at least one of them.


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