Fifty years ago, on 12 and 13 May 1974, an important page in Italian history was written with the first referendum on the issue of divorce. The winner was the no of 19 million, 59.1% of the population, with Ravenna recording a very high turnout and being among the municipalities with the highest number of votes against: 71,657 votes for a percentage of 79.73 %. “The result in the municipality of Ravenna was a great example in defense of a law that safeguarded the right to choose” underlines Giannantonio Mingozzi for the PRI. “For many of us, then in our twenties or so, it was the first real experience of ideal and political participation, in the midst of the years of lead and still surrounded by student protests, but convinced that the democratic and secular conception of civil rights would triumph I like to underline three aspects of that referendum battle.
The first, the invitation of the CEI (the Italian bishops) to take the field for the repeal did not provoke a religious war, but thanks to some prestigious exponents, including the archbishop of Ravenna, the confrontation became calm and civil ; we interviewed him and his answers, although aligned with the officialdom of the Church, showed a frank willingness to dialogue and a concern to avoid new crusades. We were also grateful to Aldo Preda for having gathered support from Ravenna Catholics (including 47 priests) for ‘No to the repeal’, an act of courage to affirm the values of civil coexistence and religious freedom essential for democracy. The second: the no front, composite and varied, called to Ravenna the greatest political exponents of the time, from Ugo La Malfa and Oddo Biasini to Enrico Berlinguer, and the ‘yes’ side was similarly characterized. The third was the extraordinary participation of young people in every initiative, and finally that tent of young republicans who for ten days, in via Diaz, reminded the people of Ravenna to express ‘a serene no from the human conscience of the country'”.
