Egalitarian marriage bill

On Thursday, 9 March 2023, Italia Viva senator Ivan Scalfarotto presented a bill to the Senate that aims to introduce so-called ‘egalitarian marriage’ in Italy, thus extending the institution of marriage to persons of the same sex. 

‘The bill stems from an observation,’ the senator explains. – It is now 7 years, since 20 May 2016, that in Italy we have an institution, civil unions, reserved for same-sex couples, in order to regularise their family and thus ‘recognise’ same-sex families as having substantial equality. Now we need to go one step further’.

The bill would simply introduce the concept that marriage can be reserved for all citizens, would replace the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ with the word ‘spouses’ in all laws, and would also allow same-sex couples to be able to adopt. Finally, the bill would repeal the Cirinnà law, thus going from three to two institutions: marriage or de facto union, with no more civil unions.  

On the possibility of this bill materialising, Scalfarotto states: ‘I will not only deliver it into the hands of centre-left parliamentarians but of the entire Parliament. I am convinced that there are no party issues when it comes to equality between people. Furthermore, Giulia Pastorella, my colleague and national vice-president of Azione, will also present the same bill’.

The hope is that, at last, we can reach where many other countries have been arriving for years, that is, the equality of citizens before the law, also on the subject of marriage.  

Maria Cecilia Castellazzi, Trainee Lawyer