Tension mounts between NCD and PD on civil unions bill

(ANSA) - Rome, October 14 - Tension rose to new heights on Wednesday between right-wing junior ruling coalition member in Parliament, the New Center Right (NCD) party, and Italian Premier Matteo Renzi's ruling Democratic Party (PD), as the government's civil unions bill, which NCD opposes, went to the Senate floor.
    In a joint statement issued Wednesday, NCD MPs Eugenia Roccella and Carlo Giovanardi said they felt "free to vote no in a confidence vote, if it comes to that".
    "If PD decides to ignore its own allies, it has to be ready to accept the consequences," the statement said.
    The bill would give same-sex couples many of the same rights and responsibilities as straight married couples, including the right for one spouse in a civil union to adopt the other spouse's children.
    Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who leads the NCD, has said he would wage a "loyal" battle against aspects of Renzi's bill.
    "Yes to the recognition of individual property and inheritance rights, no to adoptions," he said.
    Roccella and Giovanardi said, "With obstinance and arrogance PD decided today to hinge the civil unions bill on the Senate floor, eliminating the debate in committee and forcing procedure, despite our availability to find an agreement on timing, and the withdrawal of 80% of the amendments by NCD to avoid manipulative accusations of obstructionism. PD instead preferred to vote the calendar with 5 Star Movement (M5S) and Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) rather than seek mediation".
    They said the new text of the bill "introduces a marriage-like form between people of the same sex, and that with stepchild adoption opens the doors to uterus rental".
    NCD, part of the traditionally Catholic center right, sees the bill as a vehicle that would usher in the legalization of surrogate motherhood in Italy, which it opposes and which the Catholic Church condemns as a sin.
    Giovanardi and Roccella also said Parliament isn't autonomous from the government in this issue.
    "We even witnessed a hunger strike, essentially undertaken against the government's ally, by an undersecretary," the statement said, referring to openly gay junior minister Ivan Scalfarotto who staged a hunger strike in July in support of the civil unions bill.
    On Wednesday, the online version of "L'Occidentale", which is aligned with NCD, declared on its front page that Renzi "is breaking away from NCD".
    "The time has come to go back to a dialectic on values, one of the few things that in a post-ideological age like today's remain to define boundaries, identity and belonging," said L'Occidentale.
    "On the one side there are those who believe that a gay couple should be able to get married and have a baby, paying a woman to carry it in her womb and then giving it up, on the other side those who defend the natural family".
    "By tearing away on civil unions (a tear that PD made with that extra useless arrogance that weighs down relations), choosing another majority, Renzi's Democratic Party shows that it's a classic American-style 'catch-all party', that seeks votes in the centre when it goes to the polls but can't aspire to represent the values of moderates, liberals, and conservatives," the article said.