The controversial male artist Povia has penned the song Luca Was Gay and is competing for the accolade of best song.

The Sanremo music festival was established in 1951 and has been cited as the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest.

The festival has long been used as the method for choosing the Italian Eurovision entry.

36-year-old Povia, from Milan, has angered gay rights groups because his song implies homosexuals can be “converted” to heterosexuality.

The president of Italian gay rights group Arcigay, Aurelio Mancuso, does not find this a surprising turn of events as  Povia said in a recent magazine article:

“[I] had a gay phase, it lasted seven months and then I got over it.”

He also claims that Povia said he has two friends that he has “converted” to being straight.

Two years ago Povia won the San Remo festival with a song about marriage, and the Vatican has been accused of overtly interfering with the event.

Mancuso believes that Luca Was Gay refers to Luca Tolve, who says he was “cured” of his homosexuality at the hands of controversial Catholic American psychologist Joseph Nicolosi.

Nicolosi works for National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality whose mission statement says:

“NARTH upholds the rights of individuals with unwanted homosexual attraction to receive effective psychological care, and the right of professionals to offer that care.”

NARTH claim that they can free people from a homosexual lifestyle, a sentiment which seems to be shared by the muse of this song which is at the centre of this controversy.

A Facebook protest has already been building up steam following its launch on Tuesday.

It is trying to put pressure on the event organisers of the music festival to pull Povia from the line up.

Arcigay have stated that if this song is included in annual music festival they will conduct protests that will be “extremely strong, noisy and organised.”

Italian politician Luca Volonte of The Union of Christian and Centre Democrats has rebuffed calls from Arcigay to withdraw the song from the concert as, ”a clear attempt at discrimination and censorship.”

Derek Munn, Director of Public Affairs for gay equality group Stonewall, told PinkNews.co.uk:

“So called gay cure therapies and theories are wholly discredited. Science backs what lesbian and gay people know themselves. Your sexual orientation is how you are.”

Jamie Siggs was ready to give evidence in support of his boss at a employment tribunal this week, before the case fell apart.

On Tuesday Peter Boland, the previous steward, apologised at a tribunal in Southampton for alleging that Mr Dennis is homophobic.

Mr Boland, who is straight, was sacked in May 2007 after five years of service.

The tribunal was told he fell asleep while on duty aboard a flight and had made a number of other mistakes.

Mr Boland claimed that Mr Dennis had acted noticeably differently around him after rumours about Mr Boland’s sexuality began to spread in 2005.

He said: “Having to explain that I was not gay was extremely embarrassing for all concerned.”

Mr Boland claimed he was victimised and dismissed an employee on the grounds of his sexual orientation.

He took Mr Dennis and three of his companies, McLaren Group Ltd, Absolute Taste and Greyscape, to tribunal.

Mr Dennis and the companies denied all the allegations.

Earlier this week Mr Boland read a statement to the tribunal hearing.

In it he “unreservedly” apologised to Mr Dennis, all respondents, and the tribunal, for “wasting their time with what I now realise were unfounded allegations.”

He apologised to Mr Dennis for claiming he is racist or homophobic, “or that he ever made any remarks or performed any actions that would suggest that he was.

“I feel great remorse for the upset that I now realise I have needlessly caused to him, to his family and to his colleagues.”

Mr Boland decided to withdraw his allegations after it came to light that the current steward, Jamie Siggs, is openly gay.

Mr Siggs was reportedly unhappy that his boss was being portrayed as a homophobe and was willing to testify to the tribunal about his good working relationship with Mr Dennis.

After Mr Boland’s apology Mr Dennis said:

“Clearly, I and all at McLaren, and all the other respondents, have been totally vindicated by the complete and unequivocal withdrawal and unreserved apology by Peter Boland, who had worked as a steward on my aeroplane between 2002 and 2007.

“This case has been hurtful, irritating and unnecessary, in the sense that no impropriety ever took place, which fact Mr Boland now concedes.

“Equally, Mr Boland accepts that I have never said or done anything either racist or homophobic.” 

PinkNews.co.uk contacted them for information on what would happen to their business and the people working for it.

We were told that: “We are not releasing any information or speaking to the press until next week.”

Clonezone who have been running a massive internet sale have seemingly run into insurmountable financial difficulty.
The company who operate 10 stores nationwide also own a website and a mail order catalogue as part of their clonezone business portfolio.

After the recent haemorrhaging of money that the high street has seen with casualties including British staples Woolworths and MFI going bust it was only a matter of time before more niche and specialist retailers such as clonezone were also hit.

According to a survey carried out in 2006 by the readers of Gay Times gay men earn up to £10,000 more than their straight counterparts.

This massive difference in salary led to the coining of the phrase the ’pink pound’ which was always relied upon by businesses and advertisers as being an easily accessible source of revenue.

However, now that this disposable income is not as readily available as it once was people are hanging onto their surplus cash and refraining from investing in leisure activities and as a direct result of this gay businesses are going to suffer.

When PinkNews.co.uk tried to pin clonezone down to a date that they will confirm their demise to their customers clonezone said: “We are not sure.”