If you think the headline is wild, the story behind it is wilder.
The Italian Mafia operating in south Calabria, Italy has apparently "relaxed" its stance on homosexuality after an entire century of committing murder on its gay members, saying it has "evolved with society."
Nicola Gratteri, an anti-mafia investigator who has lived three decades under police protection, said in a statement:
"Gays can be accepted now, even as foot soldiers, so long as they don't parade it in public."
One of the bosses of 'Ndranghetas—the mafia to whom Gratteri is referring in his statement—has a child living as drag queen Lady Godiva, who is simply gag-worthy.
Watch Lady Godiva perform in the finale of Miss Drag Queen Italy:
Finale Miss Drag Queena Italia 2014 Performance di Lady Godivawww.youtube.com
Gratteri also says that the generational shift has changed the temperature of the mafia, and that they'd gone soft.
"I've brought to trial the grandfathers and fathers of today's bosses. They were impassive in the face of long prison sentences. The young today can't take the stress of prison in the way their parents did. They get paranoid, depressed. They're more fragile."
When Gatteri makes his reports, he's often bombarded by death threats from the mafia.
However, this go 'round, his insinuation that the mafia had gone "soft" for accepting gay men into its ranks earned him emails deriding his "insensitivity."
The times, they are a-changin'.
And the mob is changin' with them.
@chefbenqc/Threads
@the_tre_haus; beckysolwold/Threads
Ron Jarvis/Facebook
@kasialove/Bluesky
Barbara Boetsch/Facebook
@maupt68/Threads
@leftofliberal2025/Threads
@pattistraus/Threads
@sugarpillseattle/Threads
@BlueJock/X
@SentientHaze133/X
@DivinyPete/X
@SeanCasten/X
@IAmJoeTrudeau/X
@sensiblemiddle/X