Same-sex civil unions: Italy approves watered down bill branded ‘a disgrace’ by equality campaigners

Italy’s Senate has voted to allow civil unions for same-sex couples, after the country had languished for years as the only Western democracy without such legislation.

 

The final deal was so watered down by conservative and Catholic senators, however, that liberal parliamentarians and equality campaigners branded the resulting law “a disgrace” and one that left “Italy in the Middle Ages”.

 

Thanks in part to protests by New Centre Right, the conservative junior in Mr Renzi’s coalition government, the right of gay people in Italy to adopt the child of their partner – dubbed “stepchild adoption” by its critics – has been scrapped. Thus the child could instead be placed in a care home in the event of the death of the parent.

 

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