evidence: Holding a rainbow flag, Marco Marras walked on stage at the start of a rally being held by Giorgia Meloni in Sardinia during her election campaign to confront her about gay rights. As security men moved to shoo him away, the student told the Brothers of Italy leader, now Italy’s first female prime minister, he wanted to be able to get married and raise a family in his own country. Meloni replied: "You want a lot of things … everyone wants things; you already have civil unions." If gay people in Italy, a country that regularly ranks in reports as being among the worst in western Europe for LGBTQ+ rights, had already understood that privileges so far gained were threadbare, Meloni made it explicitly clear they would not get any better under her government. [...] They are especially afraid about the appointment of Eugenia Roccella, a Brothers of Italy deputy who in 2017 said she wanted to either abolish or significantly modify the civil unions bill, as minister of families, births and equal opportunities. Roccella said the bill had damaged the traditional family, and also rejected a law that would have criminalised homophobia, arguing that it compromised free speech.