The Debate around 'Gender' in Portugal and Italy: Similarities and Differences

In recent years, the debate around the so-called “gender ideology”, or “gender theory”, thrived in Portugal and Italy, as in many other European countries. Under the religious profile, Italy and Portugal are very much alike: both Catholic-majority countries, Italy and Portugal have experienced similar paths of politicization of religion in the past. In both countries, recent developments in the political regulation of same-sex partnerships – marriage (2010) and adoption (2016) in Portugal, and civil union (2016) in Italy – have raised the opposition of the national Catholic Episcopal Conferences, which firmly condemned the supposedly ‘gender ideology’ underpinning these developments. In this Paper I analyse the Catholic Church mobilization and discourse against the so-called ‘gender theory’ in Italy and Portugal, highlighting the differences in the public role of religion and the different outcomes of the public and the political debates; more specifically, I explore the extent to which the discursive opportunity structure plays a role in explaining the differences in the frames, arguments, and mobilization strategies adopted.