A Good Day For The Italian LGBT Community

How about a little good news for once? Any takers? Excellent!


For years, Italy has been far behind Europe when it comes to gay rights. The Vatican just loves to spread propaganda and stick its nose into a society's business, and because of this last year Italy was described as being second to last in Europe when it comes to gay rights. While Wikipedia seems to indicate that this depends on whether or not you are looking at EU countries or countries that find themselves on the landmass that we call Europe, it is still undeniably something this coutry should be ashamed of.


What is interesting is that Italy actually was among the first to legalize gay sex in Europe in 1890, despite the Vatican's influence. In the 70s the Italian Constitutional Court declared that it was unconstitutional to prohibit gays to serve openly in the military, a decade in which Italy also saw the legalization of many things the church was not happy with including abortion and divorce. However we seem to have stagnated in our progress for rights, and almost every other country in Europe has overtaken us. Yesterday, we took our first step forward to change that.


In a revolutionary decision, the Italian Constitutional Court ruled that gay couples living together are to have the same rights has heterosexual married counples, after a male couple married in Holland were refused the right to have their marriage recognized by the State. While this is not gay marriage, it is a civil partnership of sorts, allowing gay couples the same legal rights with regards to penisons, visitation rights etc. 


All of this was done completely bypassing Parliment, and we will see if there is any blow-back in the form of a proposed Constitutional Amendment from the Vatian's lackies. Until then, let us appreciate this small but significant step in the right direction, and hope that it is a sign of good things to come.