Civil unions, in Italy, are already a marriage with an asterisk. They have another name, a different status and do not allow civilly married couples to adopt under the same conditions as spouses. They are the compromise granted to homosexual couples in 2016, after making them wait a long time. For Roberto Vannacci’s program, evidently, we exaggerated.
The protections currently linked to civil unions must return to the rights of the individual, which can also be exercised towards a friend. “Genderist” and “homosexualist” content should be kept away from children until 11pm. Defense education and military activities enter high schools. Pro-life associations arrive in the clinics.
It’s all in the “Ideological and programmatic basis” of Futuro Nazionale, published on August 24, 2026. One hundred and eight pages, first two parts of three. The future could still hold some surprises for us. The reverse, meanwhile, has already started.
The 7.1% that takes everything away from folklore
In the YouTrend/Agi Supermedia of 30 July, Futuro Nazionale was at 7.1%: ahead of the League and close to Forza Italia. In February it started from 2.9%.
The poll precedes the program, so no one can credit voters with approving all of his proposals. However, that 7.1% says one simple thing: Vannacci is not screaming alone in a room. He has an audience. And when an audience gets big enough, ideas stop being talk show folklore and start taking up seats.
The grade comes before the schedule
Vannacci has a career as a division general behind him. According to Eurispes, 71.9% of citizens trust the Army. Just 25.7% trust the parties. That career brings with it a specific aura: discipline, command, competence. However, this does not make Vannacci the spokesperson for the Italian military.
In 2023, the Ministry of Defense itself clarified that the opinions contained in his book were personal and had not been evaluated by the leaders of the Armed Forces. The degree certifies a career. It does not extend by osmosis to family law, reproductive medicine and television programming.
Civil unions were already the scaled-down version
In Italy two people of the same sex cannot marry, but they can form a civil union. Law 76 of 2016 recognizes assistance, cohabitation, community of property, inheritance and other protections. It does not open to joint adoption for spouses. The decisions of the courts and the Constitutional Court have patched up some flaws to prevent children from paying for them. The patch, in fact, is not equality.
Futuro Nazionale wants to bring those protections back to individual rights and leave marriage as the only truly relevant institution for couples. In the document, the homosexual relationship thus returns to “friendship-affective”. The program does not say “we will abolish civil unions”. He does something more elegant: eliminates the couple and keeps some administrative paperwork.
Before the Cirinnà law, the European Court of Human Rights had already established that scattered rights and private agreements were not enough to protect a stable relationship. We had given homosexual couples a waiting room next to the wedding. Now it is proposed to remove the chairs too.
Gay after 11pm, military education at school
The program wants to ban television scenes, programs and advertisements with “genderist/homosexualist” content when they could be seen by children. The protected period would go up to 11pm, with sanctions that could reach the suspension of the licence. What “homosexual” content is is not explained. Two men kissing? Two mothers in an advertisement? A gay character who exists without applying first? The word is vague, but the power to decide television content is very clear.
Italy, meanwhile, occupies 36th place out of 49 countries in ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map, with 24% against an EU average of 52%. We weren’t exactly risking an overdose of rights. On the same pages there are defense education modules in high schools and voluntary military activities for children.
Woman is sacred (at times)
The program says that the “Mediterranean patriarchy” must be “protected and not criminalized”: it should train “strong males” capable of dominating emotions and passions and protecting women. Vannacci had already summed it up by saying that “Patriarchy protects women”, arguing that with more patriarchs there would be less rape.
The data tell a less tidy affair: in the 2025 Istat survey, 63.8% of the rapes reported by the women interviewed were committed by partners or ex-partners; in the same year, 85 of the 97 women killed, according to the Interior Ministry, died at the hands of someone in their family-emotional environment.
Then the “protection” arrives on the body and extends its hands on access to abortion: the program includes pro-life associations in clinics, vision of the embryo or fetus, listening to the heartbeat, broad protection of conscientious objection and a stop to RU-486 in the clinic or at home. According to the Higher Institute of Health, in 2023, 65,746 voluntary interruptions of pregnancy were recorded in Italy: 5.6 per thousand women between 15 and 49 years old, one of the lowest rates internationally and around two thirds less than in 1983.
Finally, there are the benefits afforded during pregnancy. After a voluntary abortion they may have to be returned, so as to prevent what the document calls “strategic pregnancies” organized to take public money. Not a single piece of data on the existence of the phenomenon is cited. Woman is mother, guardian of life and pillar of the nation. Until she becomes a possible scammer.
Birth rate has nothing to do with two men on television
The demographic crisis is real: in 2025, 355 thousand children were born and fertility dropped to 1.14 children per woman. The program also contains economic aid for families and housing measures. At least they talk about the problem.
Istat has already asked people why they give up or postpone a child. The answers are money, work, housing and lack of services. Half of women fear consequences for their career. The LGBTQIA+ community has nothing to do with the demographic crisis. And making it harder to have an abortion doesn’t make it easier to have children: according to the WHO, restrictions don’t reduce the number of abortions, they just affect how safe they are. Real problems require policies. The rights of others, however, are cut with a line.
The step back becomes common sense
The point is not just that these things were put down in black and white in the program of the party chaired by Vannacci. It’s just that that program wasn’t released in a vacuum. It already has an accredited public and party of 7.1%.
This is how a society goes backwards without realizing it. The couple becomes friendship. A choice required by law becomes suspicious. A gay person on television becomes adult content. Everything comes packaged in the words family, protection, order and common sense. Rights rarely disappear overnight. First they change the name, opening hours and counter. Then you get used to it.
