An Italian
court ruled that same-sex parents have the right not to be labeled “mother” or
“father” on the ID paperwork of their children.
A judge in
Rome ruled in favor of a lesbian couple who had launched a legal challenge
against the regulations for IDs for minors, Reuters reports.
Parents or
legal guardians must be referenced in those documents and until 2019 they were
identified as “parents.” However, when the new far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was
the interior minister, the rule was changed to require a list for “father” and
“mother.”
In the Rome
case, one of the women had given birth to a girl who was adopted by the woman’s
partner. They were legally recognized as the girl’s parents.
The judge said
that forcing one of them to be labeled “father” didn’t make sense, according to
Reuters.
While the
decision came in September, it was only recently publicized by the LGBTQ+
rights group Famiglie Arcobaleno (Rainbow Families).
The news wire
notes that this ruling applies to only this case.
"Until
the law is changed, it is up to the initiative of individuals" to
challenge the ID requirements, Egizia Mondini, a spokeswoman for Famiglie
Arcobaleno said, Reuters reports.
It’s a ruling
that goes against Italy’s new right-wing government. A statement from Meloni’s
office said the case would be examined and that the ruling “presents obvious
implementation problems” and “puts at risk” the current ID system.
Meloni is
Italy’s first woman leader and heads its most conservative government since
World War II. However, she has “played down her party’s post-fascist roots and
portrays it as a mainstream group like Britain’s Conservatives,” according
to Openly, the
Thomson Reuters Foundation’s LGBTQ+ news site.
But there’s no
getting away from the anti-LGBTQ+ statements she has made on many occasions and
those made by her colleagues in Fratelli d’Italia.
“Yes to
natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender
ideology, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death,” she said in
June while speaking to members of a far-right party in Spain.
She opposes
allowing same-sex couples to have children through adoption or surrogacy. When
an LGBTQ+ activist queried her on Facebook about the issue, she replied, “I
believe a child has the right to grow up with a father and a mother.”
Other members
of her party have spoken out against LGBTQ+ rights as well. Federico Mollicone,
culture spokesman for Fratelli d’Italia, recently said that “in Italy
homosexual couples are not legal, are not allowed,” Openly notes. In
reality, Italy allows same-sex couples to enter into civil unions, something
the government approved
in 2016; Fratelli d’Italia opposed the move. Civil unions confer fewer
rights than marriage, and Italy remains the only major country in Western
Europe without marriage equality.
Meloni and her
party have received
praise from many far-right American politicians and pundits. Among
those who have expressed support are U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, U.S.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and former Donald
Trump aide Steve Bannon, who’s now been charged with money laundering and other
crimes in relation to charity fraud.
SOURCE: ADVOCATE
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