Padua mayor says will keep registering gay couples' kids

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 22 - Padua's independent centre-left Mayor Sergio Giordani said Wednesday he will keep continue to register the children of same-sex couples despite a government provision that has forced officials in Milan to stop doing so.
    Milan was forced last week to stop a procedure it had used to register both members of a same-sex couple as the parents of a child after the prefect's department warned it was illegal following consultations with the interior ministry.
    The procedure was based on the transcription into the Milan civil register of foreign birth certificates of children conceived by surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy, or assisted fertility, which is only allowed for heterosexual couples here.
    Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said the suspension of the transcriptions was a "step backwards" while adding that he had no alternative as he could not expose council employees to the risk of facing criminal charges for registering these birth certificates.
    Furthermore, earlier last week the ruling right-wing majority was decisive as a Senate committee voted to reject an EU plan for the rights of same-sex parents to be recognized throughout the bloc.
    Rightwing government parties have also filed a bill that would make surrogacy a "universal crime", enabling the prosecution of gays who use it in other countries like Spain to get children.
    On the registration in the registry office of the children of same-sex couples "I intend to confirm the methods and procedures that have been applied by me and the Municipality of Padua since 2017, and as always done by communicating every act to the competent authorities", said Giordani after a "very cordial" meeting with the Veneto city's Prefect, Raffaele Grassi.
    "As mayor," Giordani continued, "far from making this an ideological or partisan issue, I have a duty to first and foremost protect the pre-eminent interests of girls and boys." (ANSA).