Vatican Helps Kill Landmark Italian Anti-LGBTQ Bill

It looks as if the historically queerphobic Catholic Church is standing firm in their hateful beliefs: Italy just killed a landmark bill that would have combatted anti-LGBTQ discrimination following opposition from the Vatican.

According to Bloomberg, the Italian Senate voted 154 to 131 to stop all debate surrounding a bill that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill would also allow those who commit hate-motivated violence against LGBTQ people to be charged with hate crimes.

The legislation was named the Zan Bill for its creator, Alessandro Zan, an openly gay lawmaker and activist. It passed Italy’s Chamber of Deputies last November and has since been met with polarizing responses. Far-right conservatives suggest passing the bill is a violation of freedom of speech, even though a clause in the bill declares Italians can still express their own opinions, so long as those opinions don’t lead to “violent or discriminatory acts,” reports Euronews.

The Vatican was among the most vocal opponents of the bill. Archbishop Paul Gallagher is the Vatican’s foreign minister and sent a letter to the Embassy of Italy to the Loy See over the summer with concern that a bill protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination would violate the “religious freedom” of the Catholic Church and a 1929 treaty between Italy and the Vatican that allows the church total sovereignty over its own jurisdiction.

The Church was specifically concerned about the bill’s requirement that all schools in Italy recognize a national day against homophobia and transphobia. An anonymous official also told the New York Times that the Vatican feared the bill would force Catholic schools to teach gender theory and outlaw the church’s stance against same-gender marriage.

While Pope Francis has demonstrated a greater acceptance of LGBTQ people than past leaders, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise from an institutional that has historically been—and continues to be—blatantly queer- and transphobic; the Church officially considers same-gender relationships and acts to be “intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law” and that “homosexual tendencies” are “objectively disordered” on the Vatican’s website.

Many objected to the Vatican’s response and said it was interfering with state affairs, though ultimately it got what it wanted, because the Zan Bill is dead.

“They wanted to stop the future,” adds former Prime Minister Enrico Letta in comments to The Guardian. “They wanted to bring Italy back in history.”

Photo courtesy of Gay Campbell-Hall