This evening we will be watching, with great interest, the debate between Pier Luigi Bersani and Matteo Renzi.
We expect the two center-left candidates to provide clear statements on how they intend to address the crisis, transform the labor market, address school issues, and address the issue of secularism in all institutional settings.
However, we also expect clear statements on how they intend to address the shameful lack of rights for gay, lesbian, and transgender people in this country. In Italy, we are second-class citizens, we are the "exoduses of rights.".
In this country, unlike in Europe and the civilized world, we cannot get married, we cannot leave inheritances to our boyfriends and girlfriends, we cannot ask for leave from work in the event our partners are ill, we cannot have children through medically assisted fertilization thanks to the abominations of Law 40. Furthermore, no law protects us from violence, discrimination, prejudice, and hatred.
Yet we continue, day after day, to contribute to the economic, social, and civil life of a country whose political class has chosen to ignore us and make no progress on the laws we deserve.
We remain convinced that the 18% votes that went to the two candidates who said yes to gay marriage and the extension of the Mancino Law to include homophobic and transphobic crimes will only go to the candidate who takes a clearly progressive stance and is capable of a more secular and civil vision of our country's future.
This is no longer a time for evasive, ambiguous, or cryptic positions on our rights and our lives: let those competing in the runoff elections know that we will contest, with every means at our disposal, any attempt to undermine and diminish our claims, or to delay our country's full entry into the ranks of civilized nations.
Flavio Romani, national president of Arcigay
