Italy's Senate Rejects Divisive Bill Aimed at Fighting Homophobia
The Italian Senate voted down a proposed law supporting homosexuality and celebrated by ovations after the final ruling was passed. The 315-member assembly voted 154 to 131 to repeal a law that would criminalize violence against homosexuals and the disabled, as well as misogyny, as a hate crime.
The Italian Senate, made up of 315 members, voted 154 to 131 to repeal the law which supports homosexuality.
Following the announcement of the result of the vote, the members of the Council gave a big round of applause, as a way of celebrating the decision.
The legislation of the proposed law would have amended the Italian Penal Code to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability.
Bye Bye Zan!
Italy's senate voted to block a proposed bill on Wednesday, 27 October 2021, that would have banned anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination.
“Bye bye Zan. There is still hope in Italy,” Simone Bellon, senator and founder of Family Day, said on Facebook.
The Zan Act, was first introduced and named after political and LGBT activist Alessandro Zan, attempts to add legal protections for women, LGBT people and the disabled, in the Chamber of Deputies in May 2018 as a result of a growing wave of anti-gay and transphobic attacks in Italy.
The bill passed the lower house of Italian parliament in November 2020 but has faced difficulties in the Senate.
Pina Bicerno, a member of the European Parliament's Democratic Party, described the vote as “one of the worst pages in the history of the Italian Republic.”
Matteo Salvini's far-right party and the Italian Brothers, led by Giorgia Meloni, applauded the vote in the Senate to block the bill.
According to them, the law would have suppressed free speech and promoted “gay propaganda” in schools; this was their main reason to prohibit its legislation.
Debate over approval of the bill, which would lead to up to four years in prison for people convicted of such crimes, was the result of a series of high-profile attacks against LGBT people.
The vote comes despite Italy's approval of same-sex civil marriage in 2016. However, unlike the rest of European countries, Italy has not put in place measures to fight homophobia.
Reasons Behind
In the Italian Senate, the vote was secret so that lawmakers did not have to publicly declare their position, which allowed several of them to defy their party’s position regarding homosexuality.
In Italy, a predominantly Catholic country that is also home to the Vatican, legislation on LGBT issues is particularly sensitive.
Being afraid of infringing on the Catholic Church's “freedom of thought,” last June 2021, the Vatican made an unprecedented intervention urging the Italian government to change the law.
Religion in Italy is characterized by the predominance of Christianity and the increasing diversity of religious practices, beliefs, and sects. Most Christians in Italy belong to the Catholic Church, which is based in the Vatican City in Rome.
According to the 2012 Pew Research Center survey of the global religious landscape, 83.3% of the country's population in Italy are Christians.
Most Christian denominations consider homosexuality as a sin.
Historically, the Fathers of the Church denounced homosexual activity as being inconsistent with the Bible. Over decades, Christianity had a role in spreading intolerance and anti-homosexuality in European societies, after they officially adopted Christianity.
Actually, the Vatican was concerned that under the homophobia law, Catholics risked prosecution for expressing opinions in favour of traditional heterosexual family structures.
Fearing of destabilizing the future generations, critics of the law said that “it risked endangering freedom of expression” and would have paved the way for “homosexual propaganda” in schools.
Spreading Homosexuality in Arab Societies
Italy, like many other European countries, is considerably more religious than it seems to be as the attitudes to sexuality are deeply conservative.
On the other hand, these countries have strongly tried to fight Islam which, like Christianity, also prohibit homosexuality and call for the abolition of this phenomenon.
European plans are to destroy Islam and the youth by implementing new cultures and beliefs that Western countries did not even adopt.
This is done by organizing for example courses offered to young researchers and students from European Union organizations under the name of “exchange of scientific missions,” which aim to lead Arab youth to welcome homosexuals, atheists, and Israelis with open arms.
The Arab world is facing a real ideological war and the European cultural invasion aims to deepen rebellious thoughts to weaken the Arab peoples and defend its interests on Arab lands, while protecting their generations from homosexual orientations like Italy.
It is legal to be homosexual in European countries but not to be accepted and respected in their societies. Indeed, this is contradictory. Taking the example of a report published by The Guardian about decades of persecution faced by homosexuals in Britain, the writer Geraldine Biddle says that “life in Britain 40 years ago was completely different; falling in love with someone [from the same sex] would have made you a criminal and smiling at [homosexuals] in the garden could lead to arrest. At the time, homosexuality was illegal, there were hundreds of thousands who were afraid to come out [because] the police were attaching accusations even if they were suspicious.”
Despite the passing of the1967 British law which legalized same-sex relationships; homosexuality was no longer a crime, but that did not stop the arrests of homosexuals.
Going back to social conservation in European societies, religion is sometimes used in Finland for example as a deterrent during the enactment of laws that may give sexual minorities more freedom and equal rights. Sexual minorities were explicitly viewed as mentally ill, or psychopaths and despite the changing of this view now, the church community still refuses to integrate them within society, in addition to politicians who still quote from the Bible whenever a law is put forward that would support more rights and equality between members of society and sexual minorities. Another time, freedom in European countries is a big lie.
