Italy coalition faces challenge over gay rights

Italy coalition faces challenge over gay rights
By Philip Pullella
Mon Jan 29, 11:42 AM ET
Reuters

Italy's fragile governing coalition looked set on Monday for a showdown over its plan to recognize the rights of homosexual and unmarried heterosexual couples.

Justice Minister Clemente Mastella said he would rather see the government fall than back a law he calls immoral, reflecting opposition to the move among the coalition's own ranks as well as the powerful Catholic Church.

"I don't care if the government falls but I am not going to vote for that law," Mastella said at the weekend. "Homosexuals can acquire more rights but I'll never accept the idea that they can be considered a family."

It is the most divisive issue so far for the Catholics-to- communists coalition, particularly because it raises moral questions in a country where the Roman Catholic Church still wields great influence.

The draft law prepared by two government ministers would allow unwed couples, regardless of their sexual orientation, to get certificates from town halls confirming they are a couple.

This would allow such couples to share health insurance and some pension rights, transfer rental contracts to each other and join waiting lists for public housing and state jobs.

The law, known as PACS (Civil Solidarity Pacts), is similar to legislation passed in France. It will have to go first to the cabinet and then to parliament for a full debate.

FIREWORKS

But the fireworks began over the weekend when Mastella got into a highly publicized verbal duel with Piero Fassino, head of the largest party in the coalition, Democrats of the Left (DS).

Mastella's small UDEUR party is one of the nine in Prime Minister Romano Prodi's coalition, which has wobbled on a range of issues, including pensions and Italian forces in Afghanistan.

Mastella, using a phrase associated more with the opposition centre-right, said all members of the governing coalition could not be "hostages" of the extreme left.

Fassino retorted: "You don't have to be a leftist to recognize a law that makes good sense."

Monsignor Giuseppe Betori, secretary general of the Italian bishops' conference, warned the government against trying to pass any law that would "unhinge" the traditional family.

Most members of the centre-right opposition, headed by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, are opposed to legal recognition for unwed couples and say the law will only be a Trojan Horse for eventual moves to legalize gay marriage.

Last month the northern city of Padua became the first in Italy to allow unmarried heterosexuals and homosexuals to register formally as "families based on ties of affection."

The move provoked the wrath of the Vatican and the political right, both of which have challenged its constitutionality.