Unlike many other European Union countries, in Italy a legislation governing same-sex couples marriages still lacks. This legal vacuum is mainly due to the strong influence of the Catholic Church on Italian politics. A progressive gap between the demand of the civil society asking for equal treatment between heterosexual and homosexual couples, and the backwardness of the internal positions of the Italian Parliament appears. However, several isolated attempts have been and are still being made to fill that gap: various judgments of the Italian Court of Cassation affirmed the equal treatment of all "social formations", some municipalities have set up special registers for unmarried couples, some members of the Italian parliament have tried to introduce (unsuccessfully) legal rules governing homosexual unions but the road to full equalization is still long.