ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Marlon Landolfo kissed his date on a night out, onlookers started heckling, a fight broke out and his friend ended up in hospital - the latest in a series of anti-gay attacks in Italy where plans to combat homophobic violence are hotly contested.

“They hurled insults at us,” said Landolfo, 22, describing how he and Mattias Fascina, 26, were pushed to the floor, kicked and punched, in the northern Italian town of Padua last month.

“When a friend who was with us told them off, one guy headbutted him,” he said, adding that the friend was then hit on the head with a glass bottle, requiring 10 stitches.

The police were not immediately available for comment but local media reported that four men and a woman had been charged with actual bodily harm, which has a penalty of up to three years in jail.

Gay rights advocates said such incidents highlight the need for a law that specifically recognises LGBT+ hate crimes in Italy, which the advocacy group ILGA-Europe ranks as one of the worst countries in Western Europe to be gay, bisexual or trans.

A proposed anti-discrimination law has sparked heated political debate in the southern European country, with rival demonstrations planned in Rome on Saturday and supporters of the bill set to take to the streets in about 50 cities. A pro-reform rally drew about 3,000 people in Milan last week, according to local media reports, with most wearing masks amid a spike in new coronavirus infections, which surged to a new daily record of 8,804 on Thursday.

Parliament is due to vote next week on the bill which would include LGBT+ people and women in an existing law that criminalises discrimination and incitement to violence based on someone’s race or religion, with sentences of up to four years. Read more via Reuters