A few days before the LGTBI Pride is held in Rome on Saturday, a controversy threatens to overshadow the party in the Italian capital. The Government of the Lazio region has withdrawn its sponsorship of this demonstration, arguing that it "promotes illegal acts" by defending in its manifesto the need for a law that introduces an "ethical and supportive surrogacy".
The issue of surrogacy – illegal in the country – is a hot topic these days in Italy, with Brothers of Italy, the party of the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, defending in Parliament a law to sanction those who resort to this practice reproductive in foreign countries where it is legal. The government has also ordered mayors to stop registering the children of gay couples with the town halls. Now, for the first time in ten years, the Rome Pride rally will not have the logo of the Lazio region, where Francesco Rocca, supported by Meloni, won the February election, ending years of left-wing rule.
The action has already been dismissed by the Democratic Party (PD) and other progressive forces as a "homophobic drift." "To say that Pride promotes illegal behavior is a phrase outside the civilized world that I would expect from the patriarch Cirilo, from Orbán, in Poland or in Uganda," lamented the senator of Italy Viva Ivan Scalfarotto yesterday in La Repubblica. The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, from the PD, assured yesterday that his City Council will continue to sponsor him and that he himself will be present at the march because it is "an important demonstration for the LGTBI community and for all citizens who fight discrimination ”.
