PD won't remove stepchild adoption clause says Rosato

(ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - The ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD) said Monday does not intend to remove a clause from its civil unions bill allowing gay spouses to adopt each other's biological children.
    "The PD does not support removing (the clause)," said Lower House PD whip, Ettore Rosato.
    "We're working on a parliamentary majority in order to approve the bill".
    Interior Minister Angelino Alfano from the small New Center Right (NCD) party, a junior member of the ruling left-right coalition, has been pressing the PD to remove the so-called stepchild adoption clause or risk losing NCD backing on the bill.
    Matters were further complicated at the weekend, when the leader of the anti-establishment, opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S), Beppe Grillo, left M5S MPs free to vote their conscience on the bill now before the Senate.
    Last week, M5S Senator Alberto Airola said the Movement "won't vote for a watered-down version of the bill, which is why we didn't file any amendments to it".
    However it later turned out that the M5S grassroots is divided over whether or not gays should be allowed to adopt their partner's children - as straight couples are allowed to do.
    This means that in Italy, children with gay parents risk ending up in the foster system if one of their parents die, because the surviving parent or step-parent has no custody rights.
    Also on Monday, members of the center-right Area Popolare (AP) caucus in the Senate said they oppose not just the stepchild adoption clause but other measures that, according to them, make civil unions equal to heterosexual marriage before the law.
    "And this will bring with it generalized adoptions in any court," said AP Senators Maurizio Sacconi and Nico D'Ascola.
    AP is made up of the NCD plus the small, centrist Union of Christian Democrats (UDC).
   Anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) leaders Beppe Grillo and Gianroberto Casaleggio said Monday the opposition party will vote in favor of the government's civil unions bill now before the Senate. In a post signed M5S on Grillo's blog, they also called on M5S lawmakers to "vote their conscience" on the controversial stepchild adoption clause, "based on personal principles". The clause would allow gay spouses to adopt each other's biological children.