Just got this from one of the friends of GMW:
“I want to share with you that on March, 23rd. the Italian Constitutional Court will issue an opinion on gay marriage, responding to inquiries made by four lower courts.”
Here’s a little background from an article on the ILGA-Europe.org site:
Is the Italian Civil Code unconstitutional in indirectly limiting marriage to opposite sex couples? This is the question put forward to the Constitutional Court by the Tribunal of Venice. A same-sex couple lodged a complaint against the refusal of the mayor to proceed with the publication of the notice of marriage, the first step in order to enter civil marriage in Italy. The two men argued that the Civil code does not explicitly define marriage as a union between a man and a woman nor does it include sameness of sex in the list of hindrances. In any case, if such obstacle were to exist, then it would collide with the Constitution and the fundamental freedoms set forth therein.
In April 2009 the three-judge panel found that even though no explicit limit exists, a systematic approach to the Civil code rooted on provisions like those that refer to wife and husband for the exchange of vows lead inevitably to such conclusion. Nevertheless, some articles of the 1948 Constitution appear to undermine the legitimacy of these provisions of the 1942 Civil code. The judges referred to article 2, which protects “inviolable human rights” and social groups like family, to art. 3′s prohibition of discrimination on grounds of personal conditions, to art. 29 on the recognition of marriage, as well as to art. 107, which binds Italy to respect international obligations (ECHR, EU law, etc.).
Fingers crossed, everyone!
