Italian government limits parental rights of gay couples
COLLEEN BARRYMarch 14, 2023
Gay rights activists on Tuesday denounced as homophobic moves by Italian Premier Giorgia Melonis far-right-led government to limit recognition of parental rights to the biological parent only in the case of same-sex
parents couples
.
The city of Milan has been told to stop officially recording both parents in same-sex couples on city registers. It was the last major city to continue the practice that had been briefly adopted in Rome, Turin, Naples and elsewhere after Italy’s high court in 2016 made it easier for gays to adopt a partners biological child.
The piece of bureaucracy is key to recognizing parental rights for a range of everyday situations
,like including
authorizing medical treatment
or participation and participating
in class outings.
The president of Rainbow Families, Alessia Crocini, charged that Rome’s move ordering Milan to stop automatically registering both parents in same-sex households exposed the governments homophobia.
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This government is the maximum expression of homophobia, she said. Meloni says that for a child to grow up well, they need a mother and father, even if decades of research say otherwise. It is insulting to hundreds of thousands of families with two same-sex parents.”
Yuri Guaiana, of the activist group All Out, said the move throws thousands of families into uncertainty.
News of the move, which had been communicated to Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala by the state-appointed prefect, came on the same day that a Senate commission blocked an attempt to recognize birth certificates of the children of same
–
sex couples issued by other EU states.
Sala pledged to fight for a law conferring rights equally on same-sex parents, but said in the meantime he could not risk putting workers in the city registry office at odds with the governments decision.
Salas administration not only transcribed documents from other countries recognizing the rights of gay and lesbian parents, but also conferred the same recognition on same-sex parents of children born in Italy.
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Other cities
head had
already stopped the practice as administrations changed hands and political winds shifted in Rome. In the absence of such recognition, the non-birth mother or father must go through the adoption process to establish parental rights something that can take years.
Former Turin Mayor Chiara Appendino, the first mayor to recognize the rights of both same-sex parents without seeking court approval, said the new ban is only the last slap against these families. She joined Salas call for a law recognizing their rights.
Italys Gay Party, formed in 2020 to give political heft to the fight against anti-gay discrimination, estimates that
some
150,000 children are
impacted affected
by Italys failure to recognize the rights of both parents in same-sex marriages. That includes hundreds in the city of Milan.
Gay Party spokesman Fabrizio Marrazzo called on Italian mayors to subvert the governments request and register both same-sex parents in an act of civil disobedience.
When norms are discriminatory, mayors need to have the courage to say so, he said.
