The escalation sparked by the Curia's forceful intervention on Saturday afternoon has brought the discussion on the Civil Unions Registry to a low point on the very day the resolution is being debated by the City Council.
As reported in the press, the desire of Catholics on both sides to amend the definition of "registered family" in Presidential Decree 223/89 to "union of two people" suggests that we are facing ancestral fears bordering on paranoia and signs of unprecedented incompetence. A municipal regulation cannot modify or amend a national law. This is the ABC of the Hierarchies of Sources of Law in any Constitutional Law course.
Marco Mori, president of CIG Arcigay Milano, states: Professor D'Amico, a bulwark of civil rights, should update her colleagues with a basic presentation, as they are perhaps more familiar with songbooks than public law textbooks.
Regardless of the underlying reasoning, it's clear to everyone that the greatest fear is to associate the term "family" with the term "homosexual." As if homosexuals don't have a family or aren't capable of forming one. I find this offensive, and I find it offensive that members of the majority consider these observations improvements to the resolution. They're insults.
From a secular and sociological perspective, family is that social structure whose members are united by ties of kinship, affection, service, or hospitality, living in the same domestic environment. And this applies to all those who believe in it, straight or gay.
Catholics involved in politics have three options: start thinking for themselves, study, or give up and move across the Tiber. Families formed by same-sex couples exist, and there are many of them. If we don't register, it's because the homophobic environment in which many of us live prevents us from being visible for fear of aggression and discrimination, and because other administrations have made the registry merely a symbolic act, something Milan refuses to do.
It's clear, however, that if the register doesn't address family issues and include homosexuals, not only will it not be a truly accessible tool for citizens, but it will also effectively lose any symbolic value for the LGBT community.