Over 350,000 people marched at the Milano Pride to demand equal rights for all. Among them was the secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein who reiterated in Milan the requests expressed in Naples and on which she found broad convergence with the leader of the M5S Giuseppe Conte. The opposition to the Meloni government reunited on equal marriage, on the need for a law against homolesbobitransphobia and another that helps mayors to recognize the children of homoparental couples. “A day of pride and visibility for the battles for rights”, said Schlein arriving at the Democratic Party float together with Alessandro Zan. The first battle is for a law against homolesbobitransphobia in the wake of the one already presented by Zan himself and sunk by Parliament “with shameful applause”, as the newly elected MEP recalled. According to the Democratic Party secretary, there is still a need for this law, especially “in the face of the many, too many, attacks and discriminations that these people experience every day”. A message also shared by Conte who invited minorities “to recreate the conditions to approve this law”, underlining that “it is time to immediately make marriage equal”.
Oppositions together on rights
Even the Lombard oppositions are united, especially against the Lombardy Region, ‘guilty’ of not having granted patronage to Pride. So much so that the young dems marched in provocation with a cartoon of the governor Attilio Fontana (and with posters against general Roberto Vannacci) and the M5s displayed a banner on their float with the words ‘Denying patronage will not extinguish our pride’. The group leader of the Democratic Party at Pirellone Pierfrancesco Majorino added: “Fontana never wants to come to Pride and we were sorry that he wasn’t with us”. The governor’s reply: “They just can’t do without me…”. Absent this time, but only due to a small intervention, the mayor Giuseppe Sala, who has always been close to the requests of the LGBTQIA+ world: “Pride is a collective embrace that pushes us to fight every form of hatred with even more determination”, he explained in a video forwarded to the organizers. At the Pride in Milan there were also some exponents of Forza Italia, such as the group leader at Palazzo Marino, Alessandro De Chirico, a regular at the parade who every year claims his presence and also the openness of his party on rights towards allies. Even more so after the words of Marina Berlusconi, who, on these issues, said she was closer to the left: “I am always happy when there is recognition of equality – explained Schlein – but I must say that it should be a something much more transversal. It is not clear why the Italian right is determined to remain the furthest behind in Europe.”
