ROME, June 6 -- The confrontation lasted only a few minutes, but it did not stay in the lounge. Roberto Menia, a 64-year-old senator from the ruling Fratelli d'Italia party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, walked up to two men exchanging caresses at a table in the ITA Airways lounge at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport on the evening of June 4 and told them, in front of other passengers: "This is a public place. You cannot do whatever you want." When the couple asked for an explanation, he sharpened the words. "Enough. Take your affections home, not here."

The two men, both in their forties, had been on a video call with friends and exchanging gestures of affection. By the senator's own account to the Adnkronos news agency, the...