Italian Parliament Rejects LGBT Protections

LGBT intolerance seems to be running high these days. Whether it’s in Canada where parents are pulling their kids out of a BC school that implemented a policy to protect LGBT students or among the highest ranks of the Italian Government, gay rights aren’t getting the recognition they deserve.

Italy’s Chamber of Deputies, voted against widening existing protections that already cover discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity and nationality to sexual orientation this Tuesday. The law was proposed as hate crimes against members of the LGBT community have greatly increased in the past few years. Amnesty International has said that Italy’s parliament “wasted an opportunity.”

Commentators are saying that the bill was rejected because lawmakers feared that recognizing discrimination against LGBT in the law would make it much harder to keep denying them the right to adopt and especially the right to marry, which is still seen as outrageous for this highly Catholic country. Some opponents of the bill even seem to think that the protections it offered would have constituted special treatment and vetoed it because they believe gays should be treated the same any other Italian citizen.

But the trouble is that being denied marriage and adoption rights means they are not, in fact, being treated like the average citizen. Activists have now declared they will appeal to the European Union in order to force legislators to turn back on their decision and recognize gay rights.

The UN made the headlines over a month ago for standing against LGBT discrimination and it was thought to be a massive game changer. It seems it’ll take more than that to change some mentalities.

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