Voting set to start on civil unions bill

(ANSA) - Rome, February 1 - On Tuesday the Senate is set to start voting on controversial bill regulating civil unions between people of the same sex. Hundreds of thousands of people who see the bill as a threat to traditional marriage and families took part in a Rome rally on Saturday, Family Day, organised by Catholic groups.
    Premier Matteo Renzi has said a law is needed to fill a legislative vacuum.
    Italy is the only western European country not to have either legalised gay marriage or recognised civil unions between same-sex couples.
    The bill is opposed by conservatives, including some junior members of Renzi's governing coalition, and by some Catholic members of the premier's centre-left Democratic Party (PD). The most controversial aspect is stepchild adoption, the part of the bill making possible the adoption by one partner in a civil union of the other partner's biological child.