“Come fantastico!” - Italy paves way for gay unions

Wow, Italy, a pretty conservative country socially, is moving forward with plans to recognize gay unions. I guess they’ve finally realized the error of their ways (unlike another country we know – “sigh”):

Prime Minister Romano Prodi has agreed to a January 31 deadline set by the Senate to draft such legislation, he said in a statement late Thursday, saying it would "represent a fundamental step forward" as his Union coalition honours its electoral pledges.

Granting legal status to gay couples has been a subject of dispute not only between right and left in Italy but also within Prodi’s Union coalition, which includes communists, Greens and radicals who favour such a law, while centrist and Catholic groups are reticent.

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The Senate asked the government to draft a bill to "recognise the rights, including regarding taxes, of persons in de facto couples" without discrimination in terms of the sex or sexual orientation of the persons concerned.

The Union coalition promised in its manifesto ahead of elections in April to legally recognise common law partnerships, stressing that "their sexual orientation will not be an obstacle."

So Dick Cheney, how does it feel knowing your administration has spent unbelievable amounts of time and energy moving this country in the opposite direction when it comes to the fair treatment of your lesbian daughter and my gay son? How does it feel knowing countries like South Africa and Italy have realized that their gay and lesbian citizens deserve to be treated equally and with dignity and are moving forward with legislation to correct the injustices? How does it feel knowing that you have essentially guaranteed not only your daughter and her partner second-class citizenship, but also your precious sixth grandchild? How does it feel knowing that your daughter and her partner will have to jump through all kinds of legal hoops that may or may not give them the legal protections that people like Brittney Spears gets simply by saying “I do” on a drunken whim in a drive-thru wedding chapel in Las Vegas? How does it feel knowing that Brittney Spears threw away those precious rights that your daughter will never enjoy less than 48 hours later when she decided she had made a mistake and got the marriage annulled? Does any of this bother you? Because I can guarantee you that there are many truly loving parents that would never have sacrificed their children for power the way you sacrificed yours (and ours right along with yours).

God, I hope you can live with yourself because just the mere thought of you makes my stomach churn and the bile climb up into my throat. I pray you spend the rest of your life enduring sleepless nights with oodles of time to think of all the things you have done and all the people you have trampled (including your daughter and my son) in your greedy, gluttonous, unquenchable quest for power. May God forgive you, because I sure won’t!

Oh and Dick, one more thing, how does it feel watching those batsh*t crazy “religious” wingnuts that you empowered go apocalyptic over your daughter’s decision to get pregnant? Does it make you want to smack them? Do you feel like this is a private family matter and they should stay the f*ck out of your business? Are they raining on your family’s joyous occasion? If the answer to these questions is yes --------- then I say GOOD. Now you know how my family and the families of gays and lesbians all over this country feel. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy!