Italian Senate begins deliberations on civil unions

[Ron Burgundy]

AFP - The Italian Senate's justice committee began examining proposals for legalizing civil unions, a divisive election pledge of the center-left government in socially conservative Italy.

The committee is beginning with proposals by individual lawmakers, since the government, a coalition ranging from far-left communists and libertarians to centrist Christians, has not yet finalized its own proposal.

"We decided not to wait for the government's draft bill," said committee chairman Cesare Salvi, adding that he has consulted in recent days with his counterpart in the lower house, Pino Pisicchio, the ANSA news agency reported.

Family Minister Rosy Bindi and Equality and Rights Minister Barbara Pollastrini are drafting separate proposals and have yet to consult each other on the subject, according to the Corriere della Sera daily on Wednesday.

Bindi is a member of the Catholic-rooted Daisy party, while Pollastrini belongs to the largest coalition member, the Democrats of the Left.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government, elected last April, has pledged to present proposed legislation by the end of the month.

"All draft legislation that we are examining calls in one way or another for the recognition of these civil unions or for solidarity," said Salvi, a member of the Democrats of the Left. "They are contracts, and they apply equally to same-sex couples."

Granting legal status to gay couples has been a subject of dispute not only between right and left in Italy but also within Prodi's Union coalition, which promised in its election manifesto to grant legal recognition to common law partnerships.

The legislation would apply to all unmarried couples without reference to their sexual orientation, granting them inheritance rights, joint medical insurance and visiting rights in prisons and hospitals, among others.

The Italian opposition, led by Forza Italia of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has blasted the plan, while doubting whether Prodi's motley coalition will be able to unite behind the initiative.

"We will defend the family as we always have," Forza Italia's Isabella Bertolini said last month, adding: "The false majority won't agree on anything."

The Vatican also slammed the plan, its mouthpiece L'Osservatore Romano charging in an editorial: "Eradicating the family is the priority of Italian politics."