Italian Pol: Gays Should Change Gender if They Want to Wed

An Italian politician thinks passing same-sex marriage is a "waste of time," and has proposed instead that gay and lesbian people change their gender identities.

Paola Binetti, a member of Italy's Chamber of Deputies who holds a medical degree in psychiatry, employed this twisted logic in an interview Wednesday with The Huffington Post.

"Why do we need to pass a law on civil unions for homosexual couples, and to engage in a lengthy, semantic debate around what 'marriage' means today?" she asked, in a translation posted by The New Civil Rights Movement. "Why must we embark on a bitter parliamentary battle on the value of the family, to decide whether certain reforms will strengthen it or weaken it further?"

"It would be a complete waste of time. All debate has now been rendered void by the recent verdict of the Supreme Court in the case of the individual who has demanded the right to change sex without surgical intervention."

Binetti is reportedly a member of an extreme religious group known as Opus Dei, and wears a cilice, an undergarment that may irritate the skin to remind one of atonement.

Her comments come on the heels of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which determined that Italy's lack of legal recognition and protections for same-sex couples is a human rights violation.

While the ruling does not compel the Italian state to extend marriage or partnership rights to same-sex couples, it adds critical pressure to the already significant calls for progress on the issue.

But Binetti believes such legislation is now unnecessary.

"Sexual difference appears completely irrelevant. It is enough for an individual to claim not that they are a certain way or they look a certain way but merely they desire to be a certain way," she said. "Just present your documents, declare how you feel and how you want to be considered, and the die is cast."