In light of the Cambia Italia conference held on February 18, 2013 in Rome, and following Arcigay's "Tempo Scaduto" campaign, we want to engage with political parties to ensure we are fully informed about the votes we will cast on February 24 and 25.
The debate will focus on the 4 points of the campaign Time's Up:
MARRIAGE
“I say this not only because I believe in equality but because I passionately believe in marriage. I believe marriage is a great institution: I think it helps people take on responsibilities and commitments, to say they will care for and love someone. I think it helps people put selfishness aside and think of themselves as a union, together with the other. I'm very passionate about marriage, and I think that if it works for heterosexuals like me, it should work for everyone: that's why we should have gay marriage, and that's why we will introduce it.”
David Cameron – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
These are the words of a European conservative leader in a country that is preparing to approve marriage for same-sex couples.
Since 1994, as we recall in our appeal, the European Parliament has called on member states to recognize equal rights for homosexual citizens.
In 2010, the Constitutional Court, with ruling 138, cleared the field of any hypothesis of unconstitutionality by clarifying that the recognition of equal rights, even through the extension of civil marriage, is not unconstitutional.
The first reason for asking for the extension of civil marriage to lesbian and gay couples is that there is really no valid reason to say no while there are many reasons to say yes.
Recognizing the right to marriage simply means looking at reality: lesbian and gay couples are already forming families and getting married today, perhaps in symbolic ceremonies or abroad.
Recognizing the right to marriage means fully implementing the constitutional principle of equality. It means publicly acknowledging and protecting the value of all love and all families, and therefore also providing an important response to homophobia. It means truly recognizing the full citizenship of lesbians and gay men. It means removing all the obstacles, which today amount to serious discrimination, faced by couples who, according to the state and institutions, do not exist.
At this very moment, a progressive like the Frenchman Hollande and a conservative like the Englishman Cameron are strongly supporting the extension of the right to marriage which will soon be recognized in their countries.
There are no more excuses for remaining, almost alone, outside the Europe of rights. The time for hypothesizing low-level solutions that recognize gay couples differently from marriage, which other European countries are overtaking, is now over.
The only obstacle to the recognition of marriage for lesbian and gay couples is the political will of the Italian Parliament, which is why we ask candidates in the upcoming elections to make a clear commitment to extending civil marriage to lesbian and gay couples.
TIME'S UP.
There is no longer any reason, no political identity, to say no to same-sex marriage.
HOMOPHOBIA
In Chile they call it the Zamudio Law, in the United States it is the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act.”.
There are two laws against hate crimes.
Daniel Mauricio Zamudio Vera was a young Chilean who was tortured to death by a group of youths in 2012 because he was homosexual.
Matthew Shepard was an American student who was tortured to death because he was homosexual by two people who offered him a ride in their car in 1998.
James Bird Jr. was killed in 1998 for racism, as he was African-American.
The European Parliament has intervened several times, starting in 1984 (with a resolution proposed at the time by an Italian MEP) calling on member states to legislate on anti-discrimination issues, including those regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. Today, laws on the matter exist throughout much of the European Union.
In Italy there is a law against hate crimes, law 205 of 1993, known as the Mancino law (after the name of its proponent).
However, the Mancino law only covers discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.
Meanwhile, in Italy, just follow the news: homophobia and transphobia are the order of the day, and the list of victims of assault, suicides caused by bullying, and the victims of many other forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is already too long.
TIME'S UP.
In Italy the deaths and victims of homophobia and transphobia are now countless, for this reason
We ask that the Mancino law be extended to crimes motivated by homophobia and transphobia.
LAW 40
Law 40 regulates the use of PMA (Medically Assisted Procreation) techniques in Italy.
Together with many others, we tried to oppose it immediately through a referendum in 2005.
Law 40, despite its often boastful defense of the family, is a law that results in fewer children being born, that prevents us from doing everything possible to ensure healthy children, that fails to protect women's health and freedom of choice, and that hinders scientific research, when this country could offer greater hope of a cure to those suffering from serious illnesses.
But Law 40 is also something else.
In fact, this is the first Italian law to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation, limiting access to assisted reproduction to "different-sex" couples only. The law thus forces gay and lesbian couples into what has been called "reproductive tourism," requiring them to incur extremely high costs (which not all couples can afford) and travel abroad for the legitimate aspiration of parenthood.
Many of us, right from the start, said that it was a bad law, a wrong and evil law, a law that should be repealed or radically changed.
On August 28, 2012, even an authoritative institution like the European Court of Human Rights finally said so, giving its authoritative rejection of that law.
There have always been excellent reasons, today the European Court says that Law 40 violates the European Convention on Human Rights.
Even in this case there are no more excuses.
TIME'S UP
For this reason, we are calling for Law 40 to be repealed or radically amended, allowing single women and lesbian couples to use medically assisted reproductive technologies in Italy.
TRANS
Law 164 decriminalizes sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), but it provides incomplete rules for registry changes and the dissolution of marriages for transgender people.
Trans people undergoing gender transition are often caged and effectively hindered in their daily lives by a system that forces them to undergo surgical sex reassignment in order to have a name and sex consistent with their gender identity appear on their documents.
This has serious repercussions on daily life and the actual liveability of the relationship between one's gender identity and the world around them: on a professional level, in relationships with institutions, in a thousand daily events that for a non-trans person flow smoothly, while for a person in transition they become obstacles and sometimes dramas.
Trans people don't necessarily decide, for a thousand unquestionable reasons that affect their lives and feelings, to undergo sex reassignment surgery. And even when they do, there's a whole period of time where they live in limbo, where their identity card speaks differently than their appearance.
There is a need, and the recent Argentine law on Gender Identity (Ley de Identidad de Género y atención integral de la salud de las personas trans, No. 26743 of May 9, 2012) could serve as a model for a law that regulates the RIGHT TO GENDER IDENTITY. Registry reassignment without primary surgical sex reassignment is based precisely on this consideration: a person's gender is not uniquely defined by biological sex alone (e.g., gonadal or chromosomal sex), but depends on other factors, which pertain to the psychoneurophysiological sphere.
Only a full understanding and sharing of these scientific data can allow for the correct formulation of a new law on the Right to Gender Identity. In the meantime, an essential step is to clarify once and for all, possibly reforming it, that surgical sex reassignment cannot and should not be a necessary condition for birth control.
TIME'S UP
We are calling for an amendment to Law 164/1982 to allow transsexual and transgender people to change their name and gender without undergoing sex reassignment surgery.
PARTIES CALLED:
PDL
BROTHERS OF ITALY
IDV
PD
SEL
CIVIL REVOLUTION
CIVIC CHOICE MONTI LIST
5 STAR MOVEMENT
COMMUNIST REFOUNDATION
AMNESTY, JUSTICE, FREEDOM’
The debate will be held in the Galleria Area Giovani at Via Venezia 41, near the Youth Policy Department.