Italy's gay opposition leader blasts bureaucratic crackdown on rights of LGBTQ ... trends now
The head of Italy's opposition party blasted a bureaucratic crackdown on LGBTQ families as 'ideological', 'cruel' and 'discriminatory'.
The Interior Ministry this week forced Milan to limit parental rights to the biological parent of children registered by same-sex couples in the city.
Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein, who in 2020 revealed she was in a relationship with another woman, vowed on Saturday to push through legislation to better recognize and protect their rights.
She joined thousands of people at a demonstration in Milan to protest a move by the far-right-led Italian government to restrict the rights of parents in same-sex relationships.
'You explain to my son that I'm not his mother,' read one sign held up amid a sea of rainbow flags that filled one of the northern city's central squares.
Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein, who in 2020 revealed she was in a relationship with another woman, vowed on Saturday to push through legislation to better recognize and protect their rights
LGBTQ protesters hold a rally against the government's crackdown against same-sex parents in Piazza Scala in Milan
Italy legalised same-sex civil unions in 2016, but opposition from the Catholic Church meant it stopped short of granting gay couples the right to adopt.
Decisions have instead been made on a case-by-case basis by the courts, as parents take legal action, although some local authorities decided to act unilaterally.
Milan had been registering children of same-sex couples conceived overseas through surrogacy - which is illegal in Italy - or medically assisted reproduction, which is only available for heterosexual couples.
But its centre-left mayor Beppe Sala revealed this week that this had stopped after the interior ministry sent a letter insisting that the courts must decide.
'It is an obvious step backwards from a political and social point of view, and I put myself in the shoes of those parents who thought they could count on this possibility in Milan,' he said in a podcast, vowing to fight the change.
Fabrizio Marrazzo of the Gay Party said about 20 children are waiting to be registered in Milan, condemning the change as 'unjust and
