On Tuesday the Senate is set to
start voting on controversial bill regulating civil unions
between people of the same sex.
Hundreds of thousands of people who see the bill as a
threat to traditional marriage and families took part in a Rome
rally on Saturday, Family Day, organised by Catholic groups.
Premier Matteo Renzi has said a law is needed to fill a
legislative vacuum.
Italy is the only western European country not to have
either legalised gay marriage or recognised civil unions between
same-sex couples.
The bill is opposed by conservatives, including some
junior members of Renzi's governing coalition, and by some
Catholic members of the premier's centre-left Democratic Party
(PD). The most controversial aspect is stepchild adoption, the
part of the bill making possible the adoption by one partner in
a civil union of the other partner's biological child.
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