Italy close to landmark vote in favour of same-sex civil unions

Italy is nearing a landmark vote in
favour of same-sex civil unions but the
victory is looking increasingly hollow to
gay rights supporters after the bill was
dramatically watered down to win the
backing of conservative and Catholic
senators.
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'It’s discrimination, plain and simple':
Italians on the civil unions vote
The intensity of the political fight over
the legislation has shown the enduring
influence of the Catholic church on
Italian politics, and the willingness of
opponents of the prime minister, Matteo
Renzi, to exploit the issue to score
political points.
In order to get the bill into a position
where it could be passed, Renzi was
nevertheless forced to make a major
concession on the parental rights of
same-sex couples, despite this week
rejecting the idea that Italy could have
“Serie A and Serie B children” – a
reference to the Italian football league.
The bill is expected to be voted on by
the senate on Thursday. It will then be
voted on in the lower house, where
Renzi has more support.
An amendment known as the
“stepchild” provision that would have
granted parental rights to a non-
biological parent in a same-sex union
was stripped out of the legislation this
week.
The decision came days after the
populist Five Star Movement, Italy’s
second largest political party, backed
out of an agreement to work with
Renzi’s Democratic party to overcome
parliamentary hurdles against the
proposed legislation.
The decision was probably a pragmatic
one by the M5S leader, Beppe Grillo,
who analysts said was looking to make
in-roads with conservative voters ahead
of local elections this summer.
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A history of same-sex unions in Europe
Renzi was then forced to turn to his
conservative coalition partners in the
New Centre Right to get the legislation
passed.
But after winning the major “stepchild”
concession, members of the New Centre
Right party were on Wednesday pushing
for more compromises.
“Scrapping stepchild adoption is not
sufficient,” said Beatrice Lorenzin, the
Italian health minister. “At the moment
the [ruling] Democratic party and my
party are working to build an
amendment [to the bill] to avoid [civil
unions] being given the same status as
marriage, which we consider
unconstitutional.”
Lorenzin has been a leading voice
against the provision granting parental
rights and has argued that its passage
would see a big increase in same-sex
couples seeking to have children
through surrogacy, which is illegal in
Italy. She has called surrogate
motherhood “ultra prostitution” and
said all attempts to legitimise surrogacy
and the donation of sperm and eggs to
allow same-sex couples to have children
had to be “denounced without
hypocrisy”.
Gianni Riotta, a journalist and professor
at Princeton University, said the fight
over the civil unions bill had exposed a
fact that sometimes gets overlooked in
Italian politics: that the parliament is
deeply divided.
“Renzi being a magician has managed
so far to hide this. but when things got
back to basics, it was clear this was the
reality,” Riotta said.
While the bill will be far from perfect,
Renzi will have managed to achieve
what his predecessors did not.
This could ultimately reflect not just
Renzi’s political manoeuvres, but the
fact that another important change has
occurred in Italy since the last time such
legislation was tried and failed. Pope
Francis, who was elected in 2013, has
publicly stated his desire to stay out of
Italian politics, despite his concern over
gay unions.
While the Catholic church has certainly
been influential in the political battle,
including vocal opposition by members
of the Italian bishops conference, it has
not killed the bill.
Riotta said it was likely same-sex
couples would eventually win parental
rights, but that they are likely to win the
concessions in court, not parliament.
“This is the Italian way of kicking the
can down the road and doing tomorrow
what you could have done yesterday,”
he said.