Italian parties clash over same-sex adoption

Italian parties are divided on same-sex couples adopting children as the decision to ban the automatic registration of same-sex couple’s children in the civil registry has polarised the debate, with the Italian Left standing firm in support of civil rights.

Milan Mayor Beppe Sala (Democratic Party-PD/S&D) has denounced legislative gaps on the issue and called for a same-sex marriage law to simplify the adoption process for same-sex couples.

There is a need for a “very broad axis” between leftist parties to achieve greater protections for same-sex couples and their children, Sala said Wednesday at an event on the issue that the Greens organised at the European Parliament.

The event was attended by Greens co-chair Therry Reintke, PD (S&D) European Parliament delegation leader in the European Parliament Brando Benifei and Henriette Catharina Rinzema (Renew).

PD’s lower House group leader Chiara Braga announced that the party is ready to participate in this “battle of civilisation”.

“We will be at the side of the administrators who confront the people who experience these wrong choices. We will be there, and we will unite the battle that rainbow families and administrators are doing with our initiatives in Parliament”, Braga said.

The government’s response: it’s a no

“There is no confrontation to be made. There are laws and a precise ruling”, said Family Minister Eugenia Roccella in response to the letter from some mayors, who decided to continue transcribing birth certificates of children born abroad to lesbian couples who have resorted to heterologous fertilisation, while they will not proceed in other cases.

The Supreme Court ruling referred to by Roccella states that children born abroad through surrogacy must be recognised in Italy as children of both parents through adoption in special cases, which requires a judge’s approval, and not through direct transcription at the registry office.

Italy legalised same-sex civil unions in 2016 but did not grant them the right to adopt, fearing it might encourage surrogate pregnancies, which remain illegal.

“The mayors are not protesting against Piantedosi (Interior Minister) but against the Supreme Court ruling”, Roccella clarified, suggesting they should protest against the judges instead.

Also harsh was the position of Fratelli d’Italia MEP and ECR co-chair Nicola Procaccini: “The leftists have obtained a political trial with the Meloni government as a defendant regarding a responsibility that cannot in any way be attributed to the government itself,” Procaccini said.

Along the same lines is FDI’s European Parliament group leader Carlo Fidanza, who clarified that there is no measure made by the current government “that has changed in any way the framework of the rights of same-sex couples”.

“We are witnessing an ideological campaign that has a clear objective, that of legitimising the uterus for rent, the practice of surrogacy that we as a government condemn and which, by the way, the European Parliament has also condemned in one of its resolutions. It is the left that is not in line with the EU, not us”, Fidanza said.

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