Bologna, April 29, 2014 – “It's the Caporetto of Justice”: Flavio Romani, president of Arcigay, bitterly commented on the news that the prefect of Reggio Emilia had annulled the registrations of same-sex marriages celebrated abroad. "Despite the fact that several courts have now ruled the Minister Alfano's circular unlawful, and despite those same rulings having made it clear that the prefects are not entitled to such annulment, the Ministry of the Interior's diktat has still been followed, humiliating citizens who had already had to go abroad to formalize their unions. We are pervaded by a sense of anger and impotence," Romani continues, "because when not even recourse to the courts re-establishes the difference between legitimate procedures and abuses, it means that the very foundations of our Republic are being undermined. Now we govern with arrogance, oppressing citizens, aware of committing abuse but with the arrogance of those who believe they are in the position to do so. Meanwhile, Parliament, on a stopgap law that is not marriage but civil unions, is stalling, as if the expectations of homosexual citizens were different, less important, and not at all urgent compared to the law that is being pushed through with a vengeance." "Trust. And the prime minister, for his part, in addition to failing to address Alfano's illegal actions, effectively legitimizing them, continues to reel off seasonal announcements, so much so that today he can easily reuse last year's slogan, "civil unions by the summer," since he didn't bother to specify the year." "In the dismay of these hours," Romani concludes, "I convey the solidarity of all of Arcigay to the couples affected by this unjust measure.".
