Vatican Italy Gay Rights
COLLEEN BARRY
Tue, June 22, 2021
MILAN (AP) — The Vatican has formally opposed a proposed Italian law expanding anti-discrimination protections to the LGBT community, a leading Italian newspaper reported Tuesday. Activists immediately denounced the move as “unprecedented” Vatican meddling in Italy's legislative process.
The Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, sent a letter last week to the Italian ambassador to the Holy See saying the proposed law violates Italy’s diplomatic agreement with the Vatican and seeking changes, the Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera reported.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni confirmed that a diplomatic communication had been sent on June 17 but did not elaborate.
According to Corriere, the Vatican's objections include parts of the law that would require schools as well as Catholic schools to organize activities on a day designated nationally to fight homophobia and transphobia.
Italian politicians and advocacy groups reacted strongly to what they saw as an attempt to derail the Zan Law, named for the Democratic Party lawmaker and gay rights activist Alessandro Zan. In the past, the Vatican has objected to Italian laws legalizing abortion and divorce and backed unsuccessful referendums after the fact to try to repeal them.
The proposed law adds women and people who are gay, transgender or have disabilities to the classes of those protected under a law banning discrimination and punishing hate crimes. It was approved by the lower house last November, but remains stalled in a Senate commission by objections from Italy’s right wing.
“We support the Zan law, and naturally we are open to dialogue,’’ on any legal issues, Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta told RAI state radio Tuesday. But he said his party wants to see the law enacted, calling it “a law of civilization.”
An atheist group in Italy protested the Vatican’s actions, saying they “violated the independence and the sovereignty of the Republic.”
“The government has the political and moral obligation to not only just resist pressure but to unilaterally denounce this unprecedented interference in state affairs,’’ the secretary of the Union of Atheists and Agnostic Rationalists, Roberto Grendene, said in a statement.
A gay-rights group, Gay Party for LGBT+ Rights, called on Premier Mario Draghi's government to reject the Vatican’s interference “and improve the law so that it truly has, at its heart, the fight against homophobia and transphobia.”
"We find worrying the Vatican meddling in the law against homophobia,'' said the group’s spokesman, Fabrizio Marrazzo.
Marrazzo said Gay Pride Parades in Milan and Rome on Saturday would send a clear message from the streets on the topic “and defend the laicity of the state.”
The Vatican has lodged an “unprecedented” interference in Italian politics by objecting to a law that would criminalise violence and hate speech against gay and transgender people.
The Holy See confirmed on Tuesday that it had sent a diplomatic protest to the government of prime minister Mario Draghi over the so-called Zan bill, which would punish acts of discrimination and incitement to violence against gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people.
The bill, promoted by Alessandro Zan, a gay MP from the centre-Left Democratic Party, was approved by the lower house of parliament in November.
It is now going through the Senate, where it faces stiff resistance from hard-Right politicians such as Matteo Salvini, the head of the League, and Giorgia Meloni, the up-and-coming leader of Brothers of Italy, heirs to Italy’s Fascist movement.
Conservatives and some Catholics argue that the bill would be an attack on freedom of expression and that it is unnecessary because existing laws already condemn homophobia.
The Vatican is worried that the passing of the law could lead to the Catholic Church in Italy being prosecuted for refusing to conduct gay marriages, for opposing adoption by gay couples through Catholic institutions or for refusing to teach gender theory in Catholic schools.
But its decision to lodge a formal protest with Italy, a separate sovereign state, was described by atheist groups and LGBT associations, as well as the Italian press, as “unprecedented”.
The protest was sent last week by a British archbishop, Paul Gallagher, who as Secretary for Relations with States is effectively the Vatican’s foreign minister.
The Vatican argues that the Zan bill violates the Concordat, part of the Lateran Pacts that have since 1929 governed relations Rome and the Holy See.
The proposed law would jeopardise the “liberty” that was guaranteed by the treaty to the Catholic Church in Italy, the diplomatic note said.
The Italian Bishops Conference has already protested against the bill, saying that a “law intended to fight discrimination must not pursue that objective with intolerance.”
The bill would “put at risk” fundamental principles such as freedom of thought and speech, Cesare Mirabelli, a former president of Italy's constitutional court, told Vatican News, the Vatican’s news outlet.
But Mr Zan, the MP pushing the bill, said the Vatican’s concerns were unfounded. “The bill does not restrict in any way freedom of expression or religious freedom,” he wrote on Twitter.
“All the concerns and doubts will be listened to, but there cannot be any foreign interference in the workings of a sovereign parliament.”
No comments:
Post a Comment