This year, the European Parliament has again recommended that member states grant gay and lesbian couples the same rights as those united in marriage. This is nothing new in Europe: for a couple of years now, the Charter of Nice has recognized the rights of families formed out of wedlock, and countless European resolutions on the subject are now in evidence. The movement toward recognizing same-sex couples has shifted south: Northern European countries have been joined by France, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium, which, following the Dutch example, has extended marriage to gays and lesbians. Regions with long-standing Catholic traditions (including Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre, which recognize these rights through regional laws) have made the leap. In Italy, all is quiet, but the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender movement's commitment to the legal recognition of civil rights continues. Two new bills were recently introduced in the Chamber of Deputies. Titti De Simone, Fausto Bertinotti, and Nichi Vendola are the first signatories of a bill that aims to offer a wide range of legal solutions for couples: from "civil unions," which supplement marriage and are available to same-sex and different-sex couples, to "registered partnerships," which extend the rights inherent in marriage to gays and lesbians, to the recognition of protections and rights for de facto cohabitations that wish to remain so. This broad and detailed law also includes a ban on discrimination in child custody and adoption. The latest bill, presented by Franco Grillini (and co-signed by Violante, Pecoraro Scanio, Diliberto, and Realacci, among others), takes a different approach. After having already submitted several bills, from registered unions to an anti-discrimination law, Grillini intends to launch in Italy the French model of the PACS (Civil Solidarity Pact), which has already been used by over one hundred thousand French people. Arcigay has called on the LGBT movement to mobilise for a large signature collection (objective
(minimum: one hundred thousand) that will start on February 14th to ask Parliament to pass a law. A clear but achievable goal. "A PACS forward," as the slogan of the campaign states, coordinated by Alessandro Zan, has been joined by much of the LGBT movement (Arcilesbica, Agedo, Coordination of Gay Believers, Circolo Mario Mieli, InformaGay, GayLib and many others), various party groups (so far the Greens, Radicals and the LGBT Coordination of the DS, the PdCI, Rifondazione) and the trade union and association world (including CGIL, LILA and LIFF, the Italian League of Families in Common). The DS have already scheduled a national conference on the topic for February 25th, with other initiatives in the works. In the coming months, we can bet, we'll be hearing about it in Italy's streets.
* National President of Arcigay