MARRIAGE, ITALIAN STYLE

Symbolic Lesbian Wedding In Italy Condemned By Church

In Italy, a quiet, purely symbolic wedding between a lesbian couple, one hospitalized with a severe illness, has caused quite the controversy.

Over the weekend, Gay Star News reports, Bologna town councilor Sergio Lo Giudice, a former president of LGBT organization Arcigay, married two women at the Hospice Seragnoli, a hospital for the terminally ill.

Gay marriage is illegal in Italy, though Milan has joined a list of Italian cities offering a civil union registry. These unions, however, do not afford the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage.

Despite the marriage carrying absolutely no legal weight, local bishop Giovanni Silvagni called it “a move against nature and against the order.”

Franco Grillini, regional councilor for the Italy of Values party, defends Lo Giudice’s move, saying, “Sergio was right in marrying the two women. He’s been very brave and in Italy we need politicians like him.”

“I made Ida and Mariagrazia happy. This is so important to me and to them,” Lo Giudice explained. Lo Giudice married his partner Michele Giarratano in a civil ceremony last year in Oslo, Norway and has since undergone the process to have the union legally recognized in Italy.

Photo: Wikipedia/Giovanni Dall’Orto

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