A traditionalist pattern of morality politics in the Italian parliament: the case of same-sex civil partnerships

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the Italian parliamentary debate on the Same-sex Civil Partnerships (SSP) bill, highlighting a ‘traditionalist’ pattern in Italy’s morality politics. It investigates the multifaceted arguments brought to the debate, revealing a range of stances within and across parties. The study emphasizes a shift from religious justifications to post-materialist argumentative frames deployed by MPs to influence the highly conflictual negotiation process in a context of external and internal pressures. It posits that the traditionalist model in Italian morality politics is defined by a complex array of argumentative framing strategies that transcend party lines. This approach is pivotal in understanding the nuanced legislative outcome of the SSP bill – falling, strictly speaking, neither into the category of success nor into the category of failure – which recognized same-sex partnerships but fell short of equating them with marriage (notably excluding same-sex parenting and filiation rights) and preventing them from being recognized as families.

KEYWORDS:

• Italy
• same-sex civil partnerships
• morality politics
• frame analysis
• LGBTIQ+ politics

Disclosure statement

The research was partially funded by a grant of Fondazione Cariplo “Inequalities Research 2022” and by the European Union funding – NextGenerationEU, M4C2, 1.1, project PRIN PNRR 2022: “The institutionalization of LGBTIQ+ equality in EU countries between advancements and oppositions: policies, actors, arenas”, P2022ZYZ4S_001, code CUP B53D23032850001.

Notes

1. The parliamentary debate of 3 February 2016 in the Senate and of 11 May 2016 in the Chamber, which include respectively 20 and 39 speeches, were selected to conduct the reliability check. In total 59 (about 21%) of 275 speeches, were coded by the author and a research assistant. The two coders scored a Krippendorff’s alpha of 87%, which reflects a satisfactory degree of inter-coder reliability.

2. See Appendix A for the legends concerning the parties’ acronyms.

3. Groups present in only one of the two chambers were not considered, i.e.: DeS-CD, Scpl, AUT (SVP, UV, PATT, UPT)-PSI-MAIE, Misto-ALA-MAIE, Misto PSI-PLI, MISTO-MOVX, Misto-IdV, Misto-Fare!, Misto-AECT, Misto Min-LinMisto USEI-IDEA. An exception was made for the GAL group, due to the large number of interventions of its members during the debate and its relevance for the religious argumentative frame, and for FdI due to its relevance in the centre-right coalition.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fondazione Cariplo; European Union - Next Generation EU.

Notes on contributors

Massimo Prearo

Massimo Prearo teaches political science at the University of Verona, where he is also scientific coordinator of the Resedarch Center PoliTeSse - Politics and Theories of Sexuality.