Tension over the issue of gays
adopting children continued on Monday even though a provision
that would have allowed homosexuals to adopt their partners'
biological children was stripped from a bill regulating civil
unions last week.
Part of the reason that the issue has flared again was the
birth in North America at the weekend of Tobia Antonio, the
child of former Puglia governor Nichi Vendola and his partner Ed
Testa thanks to a surrogate mother.
Northern League leader Matteo Salvini blasted Vendola, the
head of the Left, freedom and Ecology (SEL) party, accusing him
of "disgusting selfishness".
Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
is set to propose new legislation on adoptions, including those
by gay parents, after the stepchild adoption provision was
dropped to allow the civil unions bill to clear the Senate last
week.
But Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has said this would
breach a pact that his centrist AP group reached with the PD to
win its support.
"The pact between us was clear," said Alfano, whose party
is a junior partner in the ruling coalition.
"Scrapping adoptions does not just go for this bill, but
in general," added that minister, who last week said his party
had stopped the civil unions bill being a "revolution against
nature".
"We would never had voted for the law if we'd been told
that dropping stepchild adoption was provisional in view a new
law.
"We are absolutely intransigent on this".
Vendola, meanwhile, hit back at the furore caused by the
boy's arrival.
"There is no fascist-thug political vulgarity that can
disturb the great joy that the birth of a baby causes," Vendola
said.
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