Italian Senate suspends vote on gay unions
Lawmakers’ tempers flare during debate on polarizing issue
ROME — The Italian Senate began voting Tuesday afternoon on a contentious bill that for the first time would allow civil unions for same-sex couples.
The parliamentary debate was suspended after a raucous threehour discussion during which tempers flared and lawmakers hurled insults.
“We won’t permit stadium chants,” said Pietro Grasso, the president of the Senate, who adjourned discussion until Wednesday morning on the request of several senators.
Tuesday’s discussion got bogged down over the admission of a government amendment that would effectively quash other proposed amendments to the bill.
The bill has been at the center of debate for months, polarizing public opinion. It has created sharp rifts within the coalition government led by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi — who supports the measure — and even within his own center-left Democratic Party.
The divisions have been mostly along ideological and religious lines, in a country where the Roman Catholic Church still has considerable sway in defining what constitutes the traditional family.
The bill includes an especially controversial measure — the possibility for a gay couple to adopt a child if one of the partners is the biological parent — that some argue would pave the way to surrogacy, which is banned in Italy.
Earlier this month, Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin described surrogacy as “ultra-prostitution,” a measure of the intense emotions that have marked weeks of impassioned debate about the bill. Tens of thousands of Italians have taken to the streets in recent weeks in rallies both in favor and against the measures.
During a television talk show Tuesday, Lorenzin proposed “criminal sanctions to discourage surrogacy,” confirming her opposition to stepchild adoption because it “encourages surrogacy.”
Italy is one of a few countries in Western Europe that do not recognize same-sex unions in any form. Even if the present bill passed, it would fall short of allowing gay marriage.
In July, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy’s failure to recognize same-sex unions violated the European Convention on Human Rights.
Noting that the Italian Constitutional Court has “repeatedly pointed out the need for legislation to recognize and protect same-sex relationships,” the European Court found that Italy had “failed to fulfill its obligation” to ensure that same-sex couples had “a specific legal framework providing for the recognition and protection of their union.”
Supporters of the bill say it would be a milestone for human rights.
Monica Cirinna, the senator sponsoring the legislation, said Tuesday that she hoped lawmakers understood the importance of the vote.
“Today they will decide on what side of history they are on,” she said in a Facebook post. “If they are with the new families that only ask to be included in the great world of Italian families, or with those who continue to discriminate and think that we are not all equal and that rights are the privilege of a few.”