Bologna, January 20, 2016 – “An indecent, unacceptable proposal”: Gabriele Piazzoni, national secretary of Arcigay, unequivocally rejects the proposed amendment to the Cirinnà bill on civil unions presented today by Senator Dalla Zuanna of the Democratic Party. A law conceived with the intention of recognizing rights cannot be transformed into a criminal law that mandates prison sentences. Nowhere in the world have laws recognizing same-sex unions been associated with criminal clauses of any kind. The mere fact that anyone would even imagine this possibility in our country should make us ashamed. If the senator wants to intervene in assisted reproduction practices, he must have the transparency and honesty to immediately submit a proposal to amend Law 40, because it regulates these practices. The reform of Law 40, moreover, was included in the electoral platform of the party that elected the senator, so it's incomprehensible why this harsher provision should be written into a law that addresses homosexual people and their families. The same political system that for years has ignored surrogacy, practiced overwhelmingly by heterosexual couples, is suddenly caught up in this hypocritical scrupulousness in regulating the rights of LGBT people, which in reality clearly exposes the homophobic culture that surrounds this debate. A freedom that has always been guaranteed to heterosexual couples only became a problem when the debate on same-sex couples began. Let's say it once and for all: that bill doesn't address surrogacy, it doesn't authorize it, nor does it encourage it. Anyone who wants to bring that issue into this debate is clearly acting in bad faith," concludes Piazzoni.
