Italian LGBT publication, GAY.it, has reported that there will be a cross-country initiative held in Italy today.

In Italy, a year and a half after the introduction of same-sex civil partnerships, Rome and nine other cities across the country will be spreading the message that LGBT+ love is the same as straight love.

This has been organised by volunteers of Italian LGBT organisation Arcigay,  with the support of Gay Centre who created the initiative as a way to celebrate LGBT+ love.

“From 14th February, Baci Perugina and postcards will be distributed to show that everyone’s love, including gay couples and lesbian couples,” says Fabrizio Marrazzo, Spokesperson of the Gay Center, for an initiative launched in a campaign that sees two Disney princesses and two Disney princes exchange passionate kisses of love.”

A report published by Rainbow Europe last year revealed that Italy is one of the worst countries in Western Europe in terms of gay rights – ranking 32nd out of 49 countries.

The event will take place in Rome, Ostia, Guidonia and Latina, Chieti, Caserta, Isernia, Foggia and Taranto.

Rain Arcigay Caserta, the non-profit organization that has been operating in the Caserta area for LGBT+ rights for over four years, launched the event with the motto:

“A kiss is a kiss, the love between two human beings is always beautiful.”

Organisers of the event added:

“Love deserves not tolerance, but respect, this must apply to all forms of love, whether heterosexual, homosexual, monogamous or polygamist, because when human beings would give their lives for the other, for a person with whom they would like to grow old, hatred crumbles, and there is no ‘traditional family’ that takes, there is no submission of one sex to another, there is no jealousy, there is no impurity, because the Love it is always pure, and as Dante said ‘Amor, who is not loved to love forgives”.