Politics
Friday February 9, 2007
Italian Government Approves Bill to Recognize Civil Unions
Speaker of Senate charges, “This ... is just a Trojan Horse to allow marriage between gays”
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Peter J. Smith
ROME, February 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) –Italy’s government has approved a civil unions bill granting legal rights once reserved for married spouses to unmarried couples, including same-sex couples.
The "rights of cohabiting people" or "DICO" bill was approved in a special cabinet session and has divided the coalition government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, which includes centrist Christian Democrats and Communists.
Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, a devout Catholic, boycotted the cabinet vote saying he opposed the bill because "it seeks solutions and guarantees which imitate marriage".
“For us, the family, as stipulated by the Constitution, is only that founded on marriage,'' said Mastella, who leads a small Catholic party that allows Prodi’s government to have its fragile one seat majority in the Senate.
The proposed civil unions bill has created a furor in the Italian Parliament, where Italian politicians have warned that the bill is part of program to destroy the traditional family by undermining marriage.
“They are destroying the family,” warned the deputy speaker of the Senate, Roberto Calderoli. “This ... is just a Trojan Horse to allow marriage between gays.”
While the bill does not go as far as the civil unions legislation in other European countries like France and the United Kingdom, it does give unmarried couples (same-sex couples included) health and social welfare benefits, and provides an entitlement to inherit only after a couple has been living together for at least nine years.
The Vatican has been leading a campaign with Italian pro-family advocates against legal recognition for unmarried and same-sex couples, warning Prodi’s government was waging a "senseless battle" to "eradicate" the traditional family. Pope Benedict XVI has repeated that traditional marriage between men and women was a "pillar of humanity," and that pseudo-marriage arrangements were “dangerous and counterproductive.”
"Only the foundation of complete and irrevocable love between man and woman is capable of forming the basis of a society that becomes the home of all men," Benedict XVI said to a conference at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute last year.
A Vatican document released in 2003, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,” states that no legal recognition of homosexual unions can be permissible, regardless of how any rights granted would differ from marriage.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Pope: Legal Recognition of Gay Unions is “Dangerous and Counterproductive”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jan/07011110.html
Vatican Says Italian Government Wants to "Eradicate" Traditional Family
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/dec/06121102.html
Head ‘Justice and Peace’ Cardinal Fights Gay Civil Unions in Italy
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06071001.html
New Italian Government in Clash With Vatican over Homosexual Civil Unions
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/may/06052409.html
70% of Italians Oppose Same-Sex 'Marriage' Says Latest Poll
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05101201.html
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.