Govt strips families conference

(ANSA) - Rome, March 21 - The government has stripped a controversial conference of families of sponsorship amid a row over its an anti-gay, anti-abortion and anti-feminism agenda.
    Premier Giuseppe Conte said the endorsement of the World Congress of Families had come personally from Family Minister Lorenzo Fontana without consulting Conte or the rest of the government.
    "It was his own spontaneous initiative and neither myself not the rest of the cabinet, collegially, were consulted," Conte said Thursday night.
    The conference is set to take place in Verona on March 29-31.
    Fontana, who has courted controversy with extreme conservative stances, said earlier this week that the government still intended to sponsor the controversial gathering.
    "As a minister of this government, it was (my decision) to grant the event sponsorship," Fontana, a member of Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's League party, told a question-time session in parliament.
    "I still intend to confirm that position, as I intend to confirm my decision to participate".
    Fellow Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio, the leader of the League's coalition partner, the 5-Star Movement (M5S), blasted the conference as something from the Middle Ages and said M5S members will not be going.