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 Gay Rights To Suffer With Berlusconi Victory
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: April 15, 2008 - 11:00 am ET
(Rome) Italy has tilted to right with Silvio Berlusconi
triumphing in parliamentary election.
Bolstered by right-wing allies - an anti-immigrant party
and a former neo-fascist grouping - the 71-year-old media magnate emerged from
the election with a generous majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the
Senate.
Berlusconi's forces will need a solid command of
Parliament if they are to make headway in solving long-simmering economic and
social problems, including ones that plagued his 2001-2006 government, Italy's
longest since the end of World War II.
Berlusconi also has indicated he plans to tap Franco
Frattini, a former European Union justice commissioner, as foreign minister and
bring back Giulio Tremonti as finance minister.
The election is expected to result in a hard line
with Italy's LGBT community.
The gay-friendly government of Romano Prodi was
defeated in January and Prodi was replaced as leader of the left-of-center
coalition by Walter Veltroni.
Among those from the left
defeated at the polls was Rome transsexual Vladimir Luxuria.
Prodi was sunk when the Senate voted 161-156 to
defeat his coalition. The crisis began when the small but key Christian Democrat
party which is aligned with the Vatican pulled out of the coalition - in large
part due to Prodi's support for same-sex civil partnerships.
The Senate vote ended a fiery session which was
rife with homophobic epithets from conservatives. One senator was spat on,
fainted and was carried out on a stretcher.
Last fall a proposed bill to grant civil
partnerships for gay couples was shelved in a last ditch effort to keep the
support of the Christian Democrats but the small party split anyway when some
coalition members said they would introduce the partnership measure anyway.
With the defeat of the government the bill died,
but Veltroni had indicated if he were elected he would bring back the bill.
The civil partnership legislation would have
allowed same-sex couples to sign a civil registry and then share pensions,
health insurance, enter into contracts, and permit them to be considered the
same as married couples for public housing.
Berlusconi, who lost to Prodi in 2006, is a
frequent guest at the Vatican and is a staunch opponent of LGBT rights.
In 2004, during his last stint as Prime Minister
Berlusconi's handpicked man to be the European Union's human rights chief was
rejected by an EU committee after Rocco Buttiglione called homosexuality "a
sin" and that marriage existed ``to allow women to have children and to
have the protection of a male.''
Reacting to the EU move, Berlusconi cabinet
minister launched into a homophobic tirade. "Poor Europe: the faggots are
in the majority," Mirko Tremaglia declared.
©365Gay.com 2008
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