Protest in Milan against the restriction of the rights of LGBT couples who have children

About 10,000 people gathered in a large demonstration in Milan against the initiatives of the government of Giorgio Meloni against homosexual parents, ANSA, RAI News, Sky TG 24 and TG 24 com reported.

The protest was sparked by the fact that, at the government’s insistence, Milan authorities must stop registering as two parents homosexual couples who have children born either through surrogacy or in vitro fertilization.

For several years, the mayor of the city, Beppe Sala, registered such homosexual couples as two parents of their common children. Now, discontinuing the practice puts the children of these families in a difficult position. From now on, these children will be registered with only one parent, never mind that they may be cared for by, for example, two women or two men who they perceive as their two mothers or their two fathers. In the event of the death of the registered parent, there is a risk that the child will end up in an orphanage or with a foster family, even though the parent’s partner is still alive but has no legal rights over the child. There is also a risk of problems when inheriting property.

Italy legalized civil same-sex unions in 2016, but did not extend the rights of the LGBT community to the adoption of the children of two same-sex parents. Courts are the ones who decide on each specific case. The mayor of Milan had taken the initiative to act on his own, but now the authorities are stopping this.

The mayor of Milan and also the leader of the opposition Democratic Party Ellie Schlein, who is bisexual, came to the demonstration today among the protesters. Sala said that suspending the registration of the two same-sex partners as parents of their children together was a step backwards. And Eli Schlein said that the children of same-sex parents are thus under severe attack and that there is no reason to deprive them of the recognition that children of heterosexual couples receive.