Babies are not Born under a Cabbage Leaf

AbstractThe focus of this study is to reflect on the political and cultural climate surrounding the Senate’s approval (on 25 February 2016) of the draft law on civil unions and de facto unions, known as the Cirinnà law after the Senator (Monica Cirinnà) that presented it. The draft law was passed in a vote of confidence and will now return to the Chamber of Deputies. It was approved on 11 May by the Chamber of Deputies, without further modification.The events surrounding the approval of the draft law are an excellent touchstone for understanding the political and cultural climate in which it evolved. They reveal much about the level of sensitivity of civil society towards an issue – same-sex unions – that raises significant questions about the nature of the relationship between rights and obligations, new family configurations and parental responsibilities.The law will inevitably have effects that we must ponder and discuss in our capacity as sociologists.