(ANSA) - Rome, May 12 - Premier Matteo Renzi said Thursday he expected Catholic opposition to his civil unions law, but as premier he swore to uphold the Constitution not the Gospel.
"The negative attitude of the Catholic hierarchy and part of the Catholic world was to be expected," he told RAI public broadcaster's Porta a Porta talk show.
"I am a Catholic but I do politics as a lay person: I swore on the Constitution and not on the Gospel. But I respect everyone".
His government's civil unions bill became law in a confidence vote yesterday.
A group of lawmakers from various centre-right parties announced at a press conference at the Lower House earlier that they are to stage a series of initiatives to call a referendum to scrap the new law which regulates civil unions, including those between same-sex couples.
The law, which won final approval on Wednesday, extends to committed gay couples some of the same rights and protections currently enjoyed by heterosexual married couples, such as the right to receive a deceased partners' pension.
It fills a legislative vacuum, as Italy was the only western European country not to have either legalised gay marriage or recognised civil unions between same-sex couples.
The architect of the law, Monica Cirinnà, a Senator for Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said she was not spooked by the prospect of a referendum.
"I hope there is a referendum because we will win it and, above all, it would be a path to soon get to full equality," added the Senator, whose original bill was watered down.
Also on Thursday, lawmaker Michela Marzano said she is quitting the PD because the legislation was watered down. In an letter published on the site of daily newspaper La Repubblica and her Facebook page, she said the move was linked to the dropping of the stepchild adoption provision and the elimination of references to the family in the bill.
The stepchild adoption provision would have allowed civil union partners to adopt each other's biological children. She said dropping the measure was "not just difficult to accept, but also to justify publicly".
The impact of Italy's new civil unions law's pension reversibility clause on the pensions budget will be sustainable, the head of INPS pensions agency, Tito Boeri, said. "There is an impact on accounts, that is inevitable, but it will be in the order of a few hundred million euros and is therefore sustainable," he said. Under the new law, pensions will revert to the surviving civil partner after death.
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