Italy’s far-right poll favourite opposed to homosexual adoption

With barely two weeks to go before parliamentary elections in Italy, possible future prime minister Giorgia Meloni has spoken out against homosexual couples being allowed to adopt children.

In a debate published by the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the party leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy said she believed “the best possible should be offered to children who have already had bad luck.”

She specified that “means having a father and a mother, stability in the relationship, what our law prescribes.”

The comments led to a clash with her debating opponent, the Social Democrat and former prime minister Enrico Letta, who replied that children need love above all.

“But love doesn’t play a role here,” Meloni replied in the debate published Monday night, “the state does not standardize love, Enrico Letta!”

To which the leading candidate of the centre-left alliance said, “Exactly, but you are standardizing love by saying what is love and what is not.”

In Italy, lesbian and gay couples are currently not allowed by law to adopt children, but it is possible for one of the partners in a couple to adopt the other’s biological child.

Meloni goes into the elections on September 25 as the big favourite.

With her centre-right alliance – which includes the right-wing League and the conservative Forza Italia in addition to the Brothers of Italy – she is currently on course for a clear majority in parliament.

She has repeatedly and clearly stated her views on gay and lesbian adoption in the past. “Yes to the natural family! No to LGBT lobby!” she bellowed in June during an appearance as a guest of the far-right Vox party in Spain.

Recently, the issue took a bizarre turn when Federico Mollicone, the cultural representative of Brothers of Italy, demanded that the Italian public broadcaster RAI refrain from transmitting an episode of the children’s programme Peppa Pig.

The episode features Penny the polar bear, who has two mothers. “Peppa Pig is an animated series for three-year-olds,” noted Meloni, who said she feared that “concepts are being imposed on children.”