Opposition parties in Italy are using the breakup of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s relationship to lambaste the right-wing government for its preoccupation with the traditional family and conservative values.
Giuseppe Conte, leader of the opposition anti-establishment 5Star Movement, called on the conservatives to “avoid laying out cultural models” after Meloni split up with her long-term partner and father of her child, Andrea Giambruno, after he was recorded making lewd comments to colleagues. “Our paths have diverged for some time, and the time has come to acknowledge it,” Meloni said on Friday in announcing her decision.
Meloni was not married to Giambruno but has often espoused traditional family values and said that a child should have a mother and a father. Her government has put forward measures hostile to non-traditional and LGBT families.
The Ministry of the Interior in March asked municipalities to stop recognizing and registering children of same-sex couples. In July, the lower house of parliament voted to make surrogacy a crime.
In the comments, which were broadcast on a satirical TV show, Giambruno invites a woman to take part in group sex and asks whether he can “touch his package” while speaking.
“I ask the coalition government from now on to abstain from preaching traditional family values to anyone,” Riccardo Magi of the pro-Europe Piu Europa party said after the bust-up was announced.
“I invite the right to avoid laying out cultural models, which they then want to impose, steeped in ideology and built on abstract models of the perfect family … that even they are not able to put into practice given the complexity of real life,” Conte said in response to the split.
Alessandro Zan of the center-left Democratic Party, an activist for LGBT families, said: “Can we leave the families that want to be together alone now.”
Other politicians from both sides offered their support for Meloni. Carlo Calenda of the centrist Azione party said it was a “smutty affair” and offered his “solidarity” even “as an adversary.” Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, said: “A strong embrace to Giorgia, with my friendship and support.”
