Avvenire, the daily newspaper of
Italian bishops conference CEI, on Tuesday blasted Left Ecology
and Freedom (SEL) party leader Nichi Vendola after he announced
the birth of his and his male partner's son thanks to surrogate
motherhood at the weekend.
"The sad human market is growing and it has entries on
the left and right," Avvenire said in an editorial criticising
the former Puglia governor.
"They should stop calling it rights".
The case has fueled tension over the issue of gays
adopting children even though a provision that would have
allowed homosexuals to adopt their partners' biological children
was stripped from a bill regulating civil unions last week.
On Monday top-selling Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana
(Christian Family) on Monday slammed Vendola too for using a
practice that is illegal in Italy.
"The defender of the poor and the oppressed went abroad
like a gentleman of means, orphaned a baby of its mother and
eluded the (Italian) Constitution," the weekly wrote on its
website.
"Wasn't he supposed to be a leftist?".
Northern League leader Matteo Salvini blasted Vendola,
accusing him of "disgusting selfishness".
Beppe Grillo, the leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star
Movement (M5S), was also critical.
"There is something about the concept of wombs for rent
that scares me and it has nothing to do with homosexuality or
heterosexuality, but with the logic that says 'we'll do it
because it's possible'," comedian-turned-political Grillo wrote
in a letter published in Tuesday's Corriere della Sera.
Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
is set to propose new legislation on adoptions, including those
by gay parents, after the stepchild adoption provision was
dropped to allow the civil unions bill to clear the Senate last
week.
But Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has said this would
breach a pact that his centrist AP group reached with the PD to
win its support.
Renzi replied indirectly by saying that "the time of
vetoes" to needed reforms - such as the civil unions bill now
before the Lower House - is over.
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