PD Cirinnà says CEI in error

(ANSA) - Rome, March 27 - Senator Monica Cirinnà, the Democratic Party's rapporteur on civil unions, said Friday that she respectfully disagreed with Italian bishops' opposition to a bill recognising civil unions including same-sex ones.
    "I respect the positions of the (bishops), but I deal with laws and rights, rather than crimes. And not sins," she said. Earlier, the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) Secretary-General Msgr Nunzio Galantino said the bill aimed to "make an ideological stretch, reducing objectively different realities to one". The Senate's justice committee on Thursday approved the bill which will now go through both houses of parliament. The measure, drafted by Cirinnà, recognizes key rights for heterosexual and same-sex couples such as 'stepchild adoption', or the adoption of the biological child of one of the two partners in a civil union.
    The bill also calls for same sex-civil unions to be registered by municipalities and institutes a series of juridical rights and duties including inheritance protection, health assistance and a reversibility clause for pensions.