Dolce and Gabbana spark celebrity backlash for remarks on gay adoption and IVF babies

Public debates about LGBT issues tend to be between anti-LGBT activists and LGBT activists and supporters. In this case, two gay fashion desingers, who are against same-sex adoptions, are at the heart of a public row.

Fashion-design duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of Dolce & Gabbana, who were a same-sex couple for 23 years, have made some unfashionable comments that have sparked a celebrity backlash.  

In an interview with the Italian news magazine Panorama, the business partners expressed their opinions about adoption and families involving same-sex couples.

"We oppose gay adoptions," they stated. "The only family is the traditional one."

They also criticized in vitro fertilization and surrogate parents. "No chemical offspring and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed."

"You are born to a mother and a father—or at least that's how it should be," Dolce said. "I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Rented uterus, semen chosen from a catalogue."

Gabbana stated: "The family is not a fad. In it there is a supernatural sense of belonging." 

While parents with children conceived through IVF reacted to the statements, musician Elton John led the celebrity charge.

Elton John called for a boycott of the designers.

"How dare you refer to my beautiful children as 'synthetic'?" John wrote on Instagram on March 14. "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 fulfill their dream of having children."

He added: "Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana"

https://instagram.com/p/0PJUURgGUI/?taken-by=eltonjohn

Gabbana and Dolce have not taken the matter lightly.

Gabbana, who has posted several Instagram messages about it, fired back at John on Instagram by calling him a "fascist", appropriating the Je Suis Charlie slogan for his own purposes, and calling for a counter-boycott of Elton John:

https://instagram.com/p/0R35OXlWrh/?taken-by=stefanogabbana

https://instagram.com/p/0RWNcjlWgp/?taken-by=stefanogabbana

Other celebrities—including Courtney Love, Ryan Murphy (creator of Glee and American Horror Story), Ricky Martin, and Victoria Beckham—joined the outcry:

https://twitter.com/Courtney/status/576958316435255296

https://instagram.com/p/0PByfxtVCv/?taken-by=courtneylove

https://twitter.com/MrRPMurphy/status/577151073414209536

https://twitter.com/ricky_martin/status/577112194132881409

https://twitter.com/victoriabeckham/status/577388189012357120

Consequently, the designers made statements to the Independent on March 16 in response to the criticism.

"We firmly believe in democracy and the fundamental principle of freedom of expression that upholds it," Gabbana said. "We talked about our way of seeing reality, but it was never our intention to judge other people's choices. We do believe in freedom and love."

"I'm Sicilian and I grew up in a traditional family, made up of a mother, a father and children," Dolce said. "I am very well aware of the fact that there are other types of families and they are as legitimate as the one I've known. But in my personal experience, family had a different configuration. That is the place where I learnt the values of love and family. This is the reality in which I grew up, but it does not imply that I don't understand different ones. I was talking about my personal view, without judging other people's choices and decisions."

Meanwhile, Piers Morgan offered his opinion on the matter in a commentary in the Daily Mail, agreeing with Elton John but criticizing the call for a boycott, which he calls a form of bullying.

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/577535871043432448

Where are the fashion police when you really need them?