Unacceptable discrimination between unmarried heterosexuals and gay couples

by Roberta Lunghini - 2016.11.04

In Italy the new law for gay couples de facto discriminates against heterosexuals. The new law for a gay couples guarantees that should a cohabitating partner die, a pension of the dead partner (for example a disability pension) can be transferred to the partner who has survived him/her. This is not the case, however, for heterosexual couples, where legal marriage is a requirement for such a pension (of a dead person) to be transferred to his/her surviving spouse. This startling truth was upheld recently when the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a man who had had his request for his female partner's pension passed to him refused by the Italian Social Security system, because he was not legally married to her. With this surprising opinion of the Court, the man could not appeal to the European Convention for Human Rights because the Italian Constitution clearly states that in cases similar to the one brought before the Court, cohabitation and legal marriage cannot be considered equal.