MILAN — After a long flight from Seattle with their newborn son crying in their lap, an Italian couple retrieved their baby's American birth certificate from the overhead compartment, got their American passport stamped and found friends and neighbors cheering with celebratory balloons outside their apartment in Milan.
But the Italian nation has been less than welcoming to Davide Fassi, 49; longtime partner, Davide Chiappa, 44; and their son, Martino Libero Fassi Chiappa, who was born via surrogacy to an American woman.
In the days before their return to Italy last month, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government ordered cities to comply with court decisions made in December and stop certifying birth certificates for foreign children born to same-sex Italian couples through surrogate mothers. which is illegal in Italy.
The decision has left Martino Libero and several other children suspended in legal limbo, depriving them of Italian citizenship and automatic residency rights such as access to the free healthcare system and state nursery schools.
“He's a tourist now, an immigrant,” said Mr Fassi as he and Mr Chiappa sat on the couch in their apartment next to a now deflated balloon and a sleeping baby's cradle, dressed in lion pajamas and raising his arms. in dreams.
The government ban – backed up by law enforcement visits to the civil registry office in Milan – has been the first notable sign of the far-right's ideological prominence which Ms. Meloni has since won the election in September.
Her critics now fear she intends to feed her base by cutting off rights at odds with the conservative vision of the family that Ms. Meloni, who once famously decried birth certificates that listed “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” instead of “Mom and dad.”
Milan, a city that has long been a cosmopolitan haven for same-sex couples in Italy, is currently complying with the Meloni government's order and suspending the issuance of Italian birth certificates.
Without official recognition, Libero Martino, who turns 2 months old this month, must leave and re-enter the country every few months to remain legal. Courts can eventually recognize one of the men as the biological father – they refuse to say which was the sperm donor – and then they can start separate adoption processes for the others. But meanwhile, they said, their son was stuck.
“The most important thing is the status,” said Mr. Chiappa, who wore “Best Dad” socks and obsessively washed baby's blue pacifiers every time they hit the floor.
“The most important thing,” added Mr. Fassi, who was whispering, “Ciao, Martino,” when the boy moved, “is that he is our son.”
government Ms. Meloni has attempted to shift the issue from child status to the practice of surrogacy, which, while legal in the United States and Canada, is illegal or outlawed in most of Europe outside of Greece, Ukraine and a few other countries. other countries. In Italy, home of the Vatican, it is not only illegal, but widely opposed, including among corners of the center-left Catholic opposition.
That makes it an easy matter for Ms. melon.
Eugenia Roccella, Minister for Families, Birth Rates, and Equal Opportunities, denounced “uteruses for rent”, warned about the “baby market” and argued that there were “racist connotations” to the practice of white women carrying babies. fetuses cost more than black women.
A prominent member of Ms.'s Brothers of Italy party. Meloni called surrogacy a crime “even worse than pedophilia,” in which a gay couple, one of whom is usually the biological father, attempts to “pass away” children as their own and mistakes the “kids”. for Smurfs,” said gay couples are uniquely able to afford a surrogate, though it is more widely used by heterosexual couples.
The party submitted a proposal, which was made by Ms. Meloni while he was a member of Parliament, to get Italians to seek surrogate births abroad – what he calls “procreative tourism” – is illegal and “punishable by a sentence of three months to two years in prison and a fine of 600,000 to one million euros.”
Ms.'s fiery speech Meloni's against same-sex parents became a rallying point for conservatives around the world, but it also sampled, ironically, into a house music song played in clubs and on the radio. (The audio of her saying “Parent 1, Parent 2” plays on loop before she screams “I'm Giorgia.”) And Ms. Meloni telegraphed his hard line on the campaign trail.
In an interview shortly before her election, when her young daughter ran around her in the Sardinian courtyard, Ms. Meloni says he is against gay marriage, not because he is homophobic – “I have many, many homosexual friends” – but because he sees it as a move for same-sex adoption, which he opposes, and which the Roman Catholic Church has successfully lobbied to exclude from law. -a civil union law passed in 2016.
Ms Meloni said growing up fatherless – he left family in Rome for the Canary Islands – convinced him only married families should adopt. She admits that because she is unmarried, but in a long-term relationship with her best man, the father of her daughter, she too, in her view, should not be adopted.
“If tomorrow we were going to have lots of babies in institutions waiting for someone, I would tell you, ‘Everyone can adopt,'” he said. “But that is not the reality today. So I, I want to give the child the best. Is it not displayable? Is that the monster? No, I'm not a monster.”
But some same-sex couples say Ms. Melons are visible.
“This is the real side,” said Mr. Fassi.
“Litmus test,” said Mr. Chiappa.
“This is just the beginning,” they said in unison.
last month Fassie and Mr. Chiappa was speaking at a large rally in Milan which was attended by around 10,000 people. After they left the stage, Elly Schlein, the new leader of the liberal opposition and herself an LGBTQ woman, told the crowd, “The majority of these retreats are mysteriously attacking children ideologically.”
For couples planning to visit Milan's Room 143 of public records hall to register births abroad, it's painful. But Gaia Romani, a city official who helped the couple navigate the complicated terrain of transcription, adoption and certification policies, explained that Ms. Meloni had tied her hands.
He recounted the “political act” of law enforcement officials appearing to request records of all children registered to same-sex couples since 2015 and then telling his office they could deregister any in the past two years.
The city handed over notes not to risk sacking Mayor Giuseppe Sala, who signed multiple certificates, or provoking the Meloni government to reverse the status of children who had been certified, what Ms. next step.”
He personally called eight families, including Mr Fassi and Mr Chiappa, waiting to register their children to explain the situation. At a meeting in his office, which he said had been converted into a “nursery school”, parents asked “highly operational” questions to “guarantee all rights” of children. He said his office would look to the courts to find wiggle room, but he was not optimistic.
“Taking rights doesn't cost anything,” he said, adding that he expected Ms. Meloni is after children of same-sex couples, just “not so fast.”
Mr Fassi, on the other hand, said that once Meloni won the election, he told his partner he would “do something” to interrupt their dream of having children.
On their first date, in 2009, facing the Milan duomo, the two men talked about the idea of a gay couple having a family. Both pursued careers in other countries—China for Mr. Fassi, a professor of public design, France for Mr. Chiappa, who works in fashion — and formed a civil union in 2017, with an exchange of vows.
“We mentioned three cats, then we said, who knows, maybe in the future our own children,” recalls Pak Fassi with tears in his eyes.
Covid slowed their time, but they used Zoom to interview Italian partners and friends who had become parents via surrogate. They said at least 15 such couples lived in the neighborhood, and even the priest at the parish Fassi attended seemed supportive. They settled in replacements in Oregon.
On February 1, Mr Chiappa welcomed Martino Libero to the delivery room while Mr Fassi nervously listened to his playlist in the waiting room.
He remembers the song that was playing at the time: “Milano Good Vibes.”
Gaia Pianigiani contribution reporting from Siena, Italy.