In 1986, the Inter-parliamentary Women's Communist group and Arcigay (Italy's main gay rights organization) for the first time raised the issue of civil unions within the Italian Parliament. This was led by Ersilia Salvato in the Italian Senate and by Romano Bianchi and Angela Bottari in the lower house who together attempted to introduce the idea of legislation. In 1988, following lobbying by Arcigay, lawyer and socialist parliamentarian Alma Cappiello Agate introduced the first bill in Parliament (PdL N. 2340, "Directive on the de facto family", 12 February 1988), calling for the acknowledgement of cohabitation between "persons". The bill failed, but Cappiello's proposal received wide coverage in the press (where some journalists spoke about second-class marriage), and acknowledged for the first time the possibility of homosexual unions.