Italian lawmaker Michela Marzano has said she is quitting Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party after a bill regulating civil unions, including same-sex ones, was watered down before winning definitive approval on Wednesday. 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 gays the ability to adopt their partners' biological children. She said that the dropping of these parts of the bill were "not just difficult to accept, but also to justify publicly".
The new law 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 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 Thursday. "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 civil partner after death. The new law, for same-sex unions and common-law marriages, fills a legislative void since Italy was the only Western European country not to have legislation on same-sex unions.
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