Disagreement over
the Italian government's plan to give legal rights to
unmarried couples, including gay ones, exposed deep rifts in
the governing center-left coalition days after it
survived its worse political crisis. At the core of
the problem is that members of Premier Romano Prodi's
coalition range from Communists to Catholic centrists who
often disagree on matters such as same-sex marriage and
foreign policy and who command only a slim
parliamentary majority, a weakness trumpeted by the
conservative opposition as evidence that the Left cannot
rule.
In the latest
row, center-left politicians took sides for and against a
fellow politician, Senator Paola Binetti, following remarks
she made that were viewed as hostile to the gay
community. "Homosexuality is a deviance of the
personality," Binetti said during a television show on
Italy's La7 channel on Saturday.
Her comment
prompted the ire of lawmaker Franco Grillini, who is
honorary president of the activist group Arcigay and
who was a guest on the same television show. "You are
using scientific rubbish to uphold a racist position,"
Grillini thundered.
Both belong to
the centrist Olive Tree, the largest grouping in Prodi's
coalition.
On Sunday,
culture minister Francesco Rutelli carefully refrained from
condemning Binetti's statements, saying only that she was "a
woman of great intelligence and great candor who
appears on television programs that a more seasoned
politician would have avoided," the ANSA and Apcom
agencies reported.
At issue is
proposed legislation that the Italian cabinet approved last
month, granting legal rights to unmarried couples in
heterosexual and same-sex relationships. The decision
came despite alarm among Christian Democrats in the
center-left government and harsh criticism from the
Catholic Church.
Another
legislator with the Olive Tree grouping, Enzo Carra, who is
a part of a group of Catholic lawmakers who oppose the
measure, warned in an interview published Sunday that
he would lobby to kill the law. "We don't have the
numbers in the senate, and we will work to bury it
once and for all," Carra told La Stampa daily.
The measure is
delicate enough that Prodi dropped mention of it in a
12-point plan that serves as the new government platform, an
apparent nod to Catholic politicians courted by the
center-left to broaden the coalition.
Last week the
government barely survived a confidence vote in the senate,
where it has a one-seat majority, days after Prodi had
resigned over a defeat in a senate vote on foreign
policy. Communist allies voted against him. Prodi's
government survived that vote and one in the lower house
Friday, but analysts noted that the government's long-term
stability remains fraught with obstacles because of
its politically diverse makeup. (Maria Sanminiatelli,
AP)