“We want equality” read banners held aloft under grey skies in the Eternalcity.
Protesters sported the gay pride rainbow on their faces with one man nakedapart from a cardboard fig leaf with the words “civil unions” on it.
Activists say the bill, which had to be cut back to the bare bones to passin the senate and is now being examined in the lower house, is only a small step towards securing rights for homosexual families.
They are particularly angry over the scrapping of a clause which would haveallowed gays to adopt their partners’ biological children—a proposal Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was forced to dump under Catholic pressure.
“Today in Italy, in 2016, we still have to beg for charity, for crumbs, interms of rights. We want equal weddings, adoptions and full rights. Full rights,” Alessia Avellino, a 21-year old sociology student, told AFP.
Veronica Croce, 40, who was at the demo with her partner and her partner’syoung son, said there was something “fundamental missing from the law: the possibility to adopt partners’ children.”
If the bill passes scrutiny in the lower house and becomes law—expectedwithin the next two months—adoption will not be ruled out entirely, but couples will have to go to court where judges will decide on a case by case basis.
Protesters are hoping to force a change to the draft law before it isratified—or at least open a debate on rights that could eventually lead to an adoption bill.
“The law is unsatisfactory. It’s a first step, (but) it doesn’t give usthose rights that are fundamentally ours,” 23-year-old law student Edoardo Messineo said.
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