In Republic of San Marino, the path of affirmation of the LGBT + community in the public space resembles a strenuous ascent to Monte Titano. The state nestled in the Italian peninsula, in fact, faces a paradox: with His Excellency Paolo Rondelli, elected Captain Regent last April, boasts the first openly homosexual head of state, except not have LGBT + meeting places or spaces for celebrating a Pride San Marino license plate. And so, the state that, more than any other, bears the motto Libertas engraved in stone, will still have to wait for it to see a rainbow flag waving from its Palace.

Just ten years ago, with an Instanza d’Arengo – the San Marino institution that allows citizens to have their petitions in Parliament – citizenship asked the government to cancel, as discriminatory, the “moreuxorio” formula from the article 15 of 118/2010, the controversial law that granted the residence permit to a foreign citizen cohabiting with a San Marino citizen provided that both intend to live “as husband and wife”.

Since then, the Republic has made progress. Eight years later, with 40 votes in favor and only 4 against, the Great and General Council has approved the law on civil unions, which since then has recognized all civil unions rights denied up to that moment, such as residence, health care, legitimate and testamentary succession. Yvette Brodaz, 30-year-old Italian in 2019 with Barbara, originally from San Marino, was among the first to benefit from the new law: “That moment is a watershed in the history of San Marino rights,” she admits. Before then, in order to reside in San Marino, the non-resident homosexual partner would have had to declare himself as a caregiver: “But we lived together for nine years, everyone knew it,” Yvette points out, referring to the gradual disconnect between society and politics, evident in a state of about 30 thousand inhabitants.

But the law in San Marino is, borrowing the words of the Hungarian writer Sándor Márai, “an obedience that is inscribed in the heart”. The system of rules that defines the structure of one of the small states in the world is so more complex as to allow the coexistence of paradoxical realities: in the Republic the total ban on homosexuality was abolished in 1864, yet in 2008 the law that prohibits discrimination and hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation came into force. Even today the coexistence of this double track is evident in initiatives that show the steps taken and those still to be taken: “When, last March, we presented the Arengo application to establish the Day against homolesbobitransphobia, the support from all the parties it was an important political signal, which the company had already received, however, ”explains Yvette.

Marco Tonti, a 47-year-old historic Italian LGBT + activist, president of Arcigay Rimini, who has been linked to the rainbow community of Monte Titano for years, speaks of “idiosyncrasy between Parliament and referendum”. It was 2017 when, at the second edition of Pride, Tonti asked for the patronage of the Republic. Since then, the flags of San Marino and the rainbow flags of Rimini have flown together on the Romagna seafront every July, although Tonti knows that no march can ever take the place of the stubborn but slow path of acquiring rights: «It should not be forgotten that San Marino rises on a mountain. We speak, that is, of a state with its own characteristics, where until 2004 homosexuality was criminalized“. The reference is to article 274 of the San Marino Criminal Code, which at the turn of the century governed homosexual acts with imprisonment from three months to one year if they were habitually committed or a source of scandal. A law never applied, which many LGBT + have always seen as a formality. For Tonti, the absence of detention is, on the other hand, proof that the law worked: «The law had a deterrent function, it fulfilled its duty. Moreover, it was the tip of the iceberg of a company that still has some anachronistic closures: if you look at the parties in office until a few years ago, it seemed to be in the First Italian Republic ».

Today a lot is changing, not only through historical appointments such as that of the Chief Regent Paolo Rondelli, who also has a past as vice president of Arcigay Rimini. The real revolution is the one that germinates from below, as shown by the referendum vote in support of the criminalization of abortion, made possible thanks to the tireless activism of the Union of San Marino Women: «They are small signs of a change. And change is like an avalanche: when it is triggered, it becomes unstoppable ». Tonti, who supported the San Marino community in the path towards the law on equal civil unions, claims that the battles of civilization, apparently the prerogative of a LGBT + minority, benefit all citizens: “First in San Marino, 50 percent of couples bride divorced. The law on civil unions, dictated by a need felt by a community, today serves the whole of society “, he explains. According to data from 2019, the year preceding the pandemic in the Republic, 36 civil unions were celebrated, of which 13 were between people of the same sex. Thus, like a drop that hollows out the stone, Arengo instances and referendums are picking on a regulatory system that still makes San Marino an asphyxiating place for the local LGBT + community: «When they leave San Marino and come to Rimini, they breathe. In the Republic, they always have their eyes on them, “explains Tonti.

This justification in part is the fact that in the Republic the idea of ​​a Pride like the Italian ones is not even contemplated by the LGBT + San Marino citizens: “There has never been a Pride here because we are a community of 30 thousand people, there are no meeting places and the mentality is not so open” points out Luca S. (real name), who lived his coming out path with the prudence of those who admit the limits of a provincial context: «It is difficult to have an evaluation parameter, but certainly the state in which I live is not like Italy. For this reason, for my partner to my family and friends it was a gradual journey »he admits.

Today Luca is 41 years old, and looking at the places of his adolescence made of discovery and love, he identifies them all outside of San Marino: “I have always visited my home very little due to his mentality: rumors are always circulating, life is that of a village where everyone talks about everyone. But before we were reluctant to show ourselves, but today young people are different from us ». Luca Sacanna, 40 years of which twenty lived in San Marino, thinks in the same way: “If today the older generations have the mentality of the younger ones, we would live in a different, less-formed and more inclusive heterova society” he admits strongly from his experience working outside the borders, which allowed him to decentralize: «everything has been exceeded by the limits of concentration, it is a state of a few thousand inhabitants. There are many things that the San Marino people don’t do because in San Marino it’s not that interesting. It is difficult to understand why, perhaps it is just a question of resignation“.

There are many LGBT + San Marino people who identify a real one generational split in the threshold of current quarantines: «From the age of 40, everything is more serene, there are fewer preconceptions. The more mature generations, on the other hand, remain anchored to traditionalist values ​​»explains Antonio Cecchetti, 55 years old from San Marino. In 2017, the theater company he belongs to presented the gay show My son’s husband at the Titanio Theater: “We had a strong positive response, a sign that society responds well to politics”. On the other hand, however, Antonio’s coming out was not a straight path: «Up to the age of 26 I lived in denial. The process of serenity that I am experiencing today was very long “, he confesses. He too experienced the activism of the community outside Customs, in Rimini: «Perhaps there is no one who can make the commitment to set up a club, a meeting place. Perhaps the older ones are also lazy. There has never been an opportunity to form community ».

He is one of the many voices trying to make peace with this San Marino paradox. There are those who admit that there is no organized association because the community has the habit of dealing with these issues elsewhere: «In San Marino there is a strong conservative component of a Catholic style – explains a San Marino citizen who asks to remain anonymous -. In such an environment it does not come naturally to you to give your soul to take a Pride. The indolence and intolerance, combined with the propensity of the San Marino to go beyond the borders, explain why there is no real LGBT activism in San Marino, even if we are many to do it out “.

And the imperceptible line between the being and the existence of a community who, for historical, social and cultural reasons, made peace with an often little perceived lack. In fact, it is no coincidence that, among the interviewees, who the time has come for a Pride in San Marino, are two Italians linked to the Republic: “I hope for a Pride in San Marino, because personal awareness and the need to succeed are constitutive elements of the Republic. We have to wait »says Marco Tonti. From her home on Monte Titano, Yvette adds: “It is precisely in San Marino that there should be pride: it would be a strong signal in which one’s rights are screamed, the needs of people to be together, to fight together, with the spirit of joy that sets us apart »hopes Yvette. A symbolic step perhaps, but constitutive of the people of what the ancient ceremonial of the Serenissima still calls the “free land of San Marino”.