No Love Left in the Italian Senate. How Italy failed to protect the LGBTQI+ community against hate crimes
During the last festive season, Norwegian TV broadcasted the state-owned postal service’s commercial featuring a love story between Santa Claus and a gay man who share a kiss on Christmas Eve. This ad was aired to celebrate 50 years since the legalisation of same-sex relationships in Norway, officially recognised in 1972. In Norway — as well as in Western Scandinavia more broadly — people’s reactions have been totally in line with the message conveyed by this 4-minute video. On the contrary, heated controversies and criticisms have emerged outside the region, eroding the respect and acceptance of the infinite nuances composing the reality of sexuality.
While the Norwegian public opinion witnessed this scene, Italian politicians rejoiced at the absence of laws protecting citizens’ rights. Even though the legal recognition of same-sex marriage was obtained in 2016, significantly raising awareness of LGBTQI+ rights, Italian leaders of the sovereign right and far-right alliance are trying to eradicate this hopeful landmark. Recent data from Omofobia.org, an organisation devoted to monitoring homophobic hate crimes, shows that the peak of homophobic aggressions was reached in July 2018. This coincides with the rise of the right-wing party Lega and its empowerment in government. The legalisation of same-sex civil unions appeared to be the daylight for the Italian LGBTQI+ community. Yet, only two years after it, 71 hate crimes motivated by sexual and gender biases were registered, a 2021 study by the economist Simona Varrella shows. To diminish the number of violent events, a law against this phenomenon had been proposed, but was recently blocked by the Italian Senate.
In December 2021, The Economist nominated Italy for being the country that has made more progress in the last 12 months. However, in this same year, LGBTQI+ activists and sexual minorities have lost one of the most important battles: the one for civil rights.
On the 27th of October 2021, the ‘DDL Zan’, a decree-law aiming to protect the Italian LGBTQI+ community’s rights against all forms of discrimination and hate crimes (misogyny, ableism, homophobia,…) was overwhelmingly rejected by Italian senators who voted in favour of interrupting its examination at the Senate. The rationality behind this move lies in the origins of the three right-wing parties that have firmly stood on the frontline of this resistance. The legacy of Forza Italia, Lega Nord, and Fratelli d’Italia, led by Silvio Berlusconi, Matteo Salvini, and Giorgia Meloni respectively, makes their stance populist, conservative, often xenophobic, Catholic, and to varying extent rooted in fascist movement. Their politics is one of going backwards and erasing, rather than promoting an impetus for political, cultural and social progress. These uneager parties that have stalled the process of this law’s approval have always implemented forms of obstructionism in the pathway towards outright passing it, and claim that the Italian Constitution already prosecutes discriminatory misdemeanours. However, hitherto there are still people suffering both physical and psychological violence from their parents and/or friends because of their sexual orientation. In fact, from 2017 to 2019, the reports of anti-LGBTQI+ hate crimes have increased by 14,74%, a report by political scientist Massimo Prearo found out.
The Vatican’s position is aligned to this far-right slant. The Holy See deems the text promoted by the centre-left as a theological attack; the criticisms it expressed when the law was discussed in the Senate last October were nothing new. The Church openly asked politicians, both from the left and right wings, to reject the law as it refers to a gender ideology that is harshly condemned by the Magisterium, which sees it as pernicious brainwashing. By claiming that gender is separate from sex, for instance, this ideology threatens the gender norms and gendered social roles that Catholicism imposes. Furthermore, the separation of gender from sex challenges any justification for the oppression of women that is grounded in biology — which is something the Catholic church may or may not have done historically. The incompatibility between this political program and the pillars of the Catholic doctrine is illustrated by the Church’s fear that this “gender ideology” would become a single thought and supposedly violate the fundamental contents of faith and morality by imposing alternative or even opposed proposals to those Catholic contents. Among them, the Catholic Church argues that its “freedom of organisation” and the public exercise of worship are threatened. For example, critics of the bill said it could oblige private Catholic schools to “adjust curricula to adopt state-mandated lessons on tolerance and gender”, and would also “criminalize some public expressions of Catholic teaching on sexuality and marriage”.
Democratic Party MP Alessandro Zan, from whom the name of the LGBTQI+ bill is derived, was deeply frustrated with the rejection of the bill. Enrico Letta, Secretary of the Democratic Party, asserted that this refusal “stops the future and brings Italy backwards”. Many other leftists shared their disappointment, from the former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (current leader of the Five Star Movement) who accused the Senate of being immature, to the head of Democratic Senators Simona Malpezzi who expressed her deepest sadness and shame when seeing right-wing senators cheering the rejection of the law.
The LGBTQI+ community is not the only minority protected by this law. The Zan bill also provides penalties for those who commit hate crimes and injustices for misogynistic reasons and against people with disabilities. Right-wing politicians impeded these categories from obtaining guarantees of protection from discriminatory and violent acts. In a nutshell, the Zan bill aimed at raising awareness on these matters too often neglected, but also at boosting our self-consciousness and confidence. It, therefore, mirrored the promotion of a culture based on respecting and utterly including everyone, which is paramount to hinder all the prejudices and violence wounding our contemporary societies and leaving profound scars that take a long time to heal.
Needless to say that the approval of a law dismantling the anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric is extremely urgent in Italy. As mentioned above, the alertness and number of reported hate crimes have heightened over time, thus leading to greater courage to denounce; but this is not enough to halt aggression. The absence of a law solely dedicated to the preservation of LGBTQI+ rights means the potential for advocating sexual awareness will wane, and a national acceptance of the very basic human principles of “love is love” and “be whoever you want to be” will never be achieved as common sense.
The step back taken on the 27th of October signals that the Italian Senate is a political body that doesn’t seem to embody the people’s voice, and that is steadily moving far away from the majority of the population. A large portion of Italians is indeed willing to talk about gender identity, sexual orientation and disabilities, subjects that are no longer taboos by now. A survey conducted by the Italian political and social research institute Demos & Pi revealed that in May 2021, 70% of Italian citizens were in favour of the approval of this bill. Most of the consensus can be found among the younger generations, whereas the elderly remain behind in the recognition of new forms of gender identity and the acknowledgment of changes in the understanding of sexual orientation.
Far-right politicians are closer to this latter posture when it comes to dealing with these issues, not keeping up with the transformations reshaping our social relations. When obtaining their desired voting result, the opposing MPs have been depicted applauding the sunset of civil rights. In other words, they retained the possibility for many Italian citizens to find justice after having been beaten in the streets and verbally insulted specifically because of their sexual orientation, without finding any kind of legal protection or judicial conviction of the criminal afterwards. This conundrum shows crystal-clear the disharmony between the Senate and the ongoing zeitgeist outside of it.
Despite this defeat, this downfall didn’t go unnoticed in other countries like the UK where, on the contrary, the LGBTQI+ community is largely integrated into society (as opposed to the stigmatisation of many LGBTQI+ Italians). The debate over the current Italian legal framework matters simply because it is a deficient judicial structure, full of gaps that need to be filled. And one of the remedies is taking a page out of other legal experiences where these voids have disappeared a long time ago, and where the law is a tool preventing discrimination, rather than prompting it. The Italian community living in the UK, especially in London, immediately stands out on social media networks, as a group of youth concerned with what happens in their country, particularly when it comes to civil and human rights. This incipient movement has shown intense social participation and a solid will of making itself heard by the Italian Senate.
Regular gatherings and protests are gaining momentum, during which these youth talk about the milestone that the 27th of October represents for the numerous Italian LGBTQI+ community living in the British capital. The largest demonstration took place on Sunday 14th of November. Many rainbow flags and posters were filled with ironic phrases targeting the homophobic Senate, such as “While the hatred kills, the Senate rejoices” and “Our shame goes from London to Rome”. Their hashtag #ddlzanlondra echoed on social media. Most of the participants, from activists to artists and students, spoke about their own experiences, including what might sometimes have been an arduous coming out, and highlighted the difference between how it is to live as a member of this community in the UK and in Italy.
The DDL Zan law covering LGBTQI+ rights needs to catch up on broad phenomena that are already occurring, from the enlargement of the LGBTQI+ communities all over the world, to the reinforcement of associations tightly defending their rights. Italy has simply missed an opportunity. It was not surprising to see, in the post-Zan days, Italian squares loaded by protests organised in the name of civil rights. LGBTQI+ activists and associations, such as Gaynet Roma, proclaimed they were ready to continue acting adamantly and ask for what they deserve. Despite many years of debacles, the rainbow community is tired but doesn’t feel alone, it aims higher and will keep on filling the squares, also those abroad. The LGBTQI+ community desires to relaunch the stimulus of the progressive political sphere for more inclusive attitudes. What is certain is that no one can stop this ship from sailing, not even the sinking of the Zan bill.
