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LA STAMPA

Italian Couple Works Legal Loophole To Form Same-Sex Family

Socially conservative Italy isn't likely to embrace gay marriage anytime soon. That hasn't stopped one same-sex couple from trying. While Savona's Francesco and Manuel haven't yet managed to tie the knot, they did come

An Italian gay couple in the Colosseum in Rome
An Italian gay couple in the Colosseum in Rome
Ermanno Branca

SAVONA – It's not exactly a full-fledged marriage, but the official recognition by one Italian coastal town that two men constitute a "family unit" is being seen by some as an important step in the battle for legal recognition of same-sex couples in Italy.

Last year, Francesco Zanardi and Manuel Incorvaia tried to get the mayor of Savona, a seaport on Italy's northwestern coast, to marry them. That effort failed. But they did get the town's registry office to recognize them as a "family unit."

The town hall plays down the recognition, saying officials have merely applied a 1989 local decree that allows people living under the same roof to be given a family status, even when not married, provided they declare a mutual bond of affection.

It's a bit of bureaucratic miracle, but it was accomplished quite easily. All Zanardi and Incorvaia had to do was go to the town's registry office and fill out a form in which they stated their bond of affection and their desire to form a family. The couple was accompanied by some center-left local politicians who have backed their cause.

"It's a further step forward for the rights of gay couples," the two men declare.

Inspired by their new status, the couple has renewed their marriage request. The original petition was denied on grounds that Italy does not envisage same-sex marriages. It's likely their second request will suffer the same fate.

Italy, a Roman Catholic nation that hosts the Vatican, does not recognize same-sex marriages and current center-right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said his government has no plans to do so. An effort by the previous center-left government to introduce rights for de-facto couples, including gay ones, drew opposition and was never turned into law.

Italy does have detailed – and constantly evolving – statutes regulating cohabitation. National law allows people who share the same residency to constitute separate family units for fiscal reasons. But it also allows people to form a single family in cases involving a degree of kinship, adoption, guardianship or when the individuals involved state their bond of affection.

As Zanardi and Incorvaia demonstrated, this "affection clause" can operate as a legal loophole for same-sex couples seeking some type of legal acknowledgement. But it can also be a fragile bond. As easily as a family unit is formed, it can also be dissolved. All that's needed is another visit to the registry office to state the mutual affection is no longer there.

Photo - justinfeed

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Green

Forest Networks? Revisiting The Science Of Trees And Funghi "Reaching Out"

A compelling story about how forest fungal networks communicate has garnered much public interest. Is any of it true?

Thomas Brail films the roots of a cut tree with his smartphone.

Arborist and conservationist Thomas Brail at a clearcutting near his hometown of Mazamet in the Tarn, France.

Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema, & Justine Karst

Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighboring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests — a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks. The narrative — recounted in books, podcasts, TV series, documentaries, and news articles — has prompted some experts to rethink not only forest management but the relationships between self-interest and altruism in human society.

But is any of it true?

The three of us have studied forest fungi for our whole careers, and even we were surprised by some of the more extraordinary claims surfacing in the media about the wood-wide web. Thinking we had missed something, we thoroughly reviewed 26 field studies, including several of our own, that looked at the role fungal networks play in resource transfer in forests. What we found shows how easily confirmation bias, unchecked claims, and credulous news reporting can, over time, distort research findings beyond recognition. It should serve as a cautionary tale for scientists and journalists alike.

First, let’s be clear: Fungi do grow inside and on tree roots, forming a symbiosis called a mycorrhiza, or fungus-root. Mycorrhizae are essential for the normal growth of trees. Among other things, the fungi can take up from the soil, and transfer to the tree, nutrients that roots could not otherwise access. In return, fungi receive from the roots sugars they need to grow.

As fungal filaments spread out through forest soil, they will often, at least temporarily, physically connect the roots of two neighboring trees. The resulting system of interconnected tree roots is called a common mycorrhizal network, or CMN.

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