With the confirmation of Antonio Di Pietro's "yes" to gay marriage, relaunched by ’Espresso“, and anticipated in recent days by Franco Grillini, head of civil rights for IdV, IdV is the first Italian party to express itself in favor of gay marriage.
And the "yes" of the IdV, just like that of US President Barack Obama, the new French President François Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Raul Castro, who is in favor of same-sex marriage according to the statements of his daughter Mariela Castro, is part of a cultural revolution that unambiguously affirms the social value of affection between people of the same sex and the complete equality in rights and duties between heterosexuals and homosexuals.
And so, finally, even in Italy, the monolithic front of "no" and "no" to same-sex marriage has crumbled. From now on, the "no" to gay marriage will represent the inability of a political force to interpret our Constitution, the future, change, humanity, civilization, and democracy. The "no" to same-sex marriage will be a "no" to secularism, a "no" to the future, a "no" to "Europe," and a "no" to the West.
From this perspective, the hesitations of other political forces, and once again of the Democratic Party (PD), through the words of its leader Bersani, who in recent days has said yet another "no" to "gay marriage" and a vague "yes" to civil unions, are a cause for profound disappointment and risk definitively distancing the Italian left from European social democracy and consolidating the country's serious distance from the Union.
Today, all political forces, from right to left, have a historic opportunity to realign Italy with the world, which seeks to grow in democracy, including through the rights of LGBT people and same-sex couples.
The Democratic Party, the largest left-wing party that presents itself as an alternative government, cannot ignore that there is no middle ground for equality—either it exists or it doesn't—and that the right to civil marriage for all citizens of our country, without distinction, embodies a fundamental human right.
Courage, Bersani: the country must change if it wants to emerge from the crisis, and you believe this can happen by turning a blind eye and looking away, away from the rights of homosexual and transgender people? Is it so terrible for the Italian left to try to resemble the progressive parties that are winning elections in major European countries?
Paolo Patanè, national president of Arcigay
(In the photo: Pier Luigi Bersani. GFoto Gianfranco Galvano Wikicommons)
