Italy’s ruling on gay adoption prompts Vatican to speak out

The Vatican newspaper yesterday stressed that children should be raised by a father and a mother after Italy’s top appeals court granted a gay mother custody of her son, prompting a debate over gay adoption.

Italy’s Court of Cassation on Friday rejected an appeal by a father who feared his son would not have a balanced upbringing if he lived with his mother and her female partner. The court ruled it was “mere prejudice” to think that a child could not be brought up normally by homosexual parents.

While gay rights group Arcigay hailed the decision as a “historic ruling” in Italy, where it is illegal for gay couples to adopt, Catholic leaders were quick to defend the traditional family unit.

L’Osservatore Romano, the 151-year-old mouthpiece of the Holy See, yesterday ran an editorial which sought to play down the ruling, saying that children often grow up in difficult circumstances without a mother or father.

“But no one believes that these situations should be created just because in some cases they don’t cause damage,” wrote Adriano Pessina, director of bioethics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.

“The human is the masculine and the feminine ... the monogamous family is the ideal place to learn the meaning of human relations and is the environment where the best form of growth is possible,” he said.

He went on to reaffirm the Vatican’s view that no one has the “right” to children that he said gay couples who want to adopt are claiming.

Meanwhile, in France, hundreds of thousands of people converged on the Eiffel Tower to protest against the French president’s plan to legalise gay marriage and thus allow same-sex couples to adopt and conceive children.

François Hollande’s plan has underscored divisions among the secular-but-Catholic French, especially more traditional rural areas versus urban enclaves. But while polls show the majority of French still support legalising gay marriage, that backing gets more lukewarm when conceiving and raising children comes into play.

The protest march started at three points across Paris, filling boulevards throughout the city as demonstrators walked three miles to the grounds of France’s most recognisable monument.

Paris police estimated the crowd at 340,000, making it one of the largest demonstrations in Paris since an education protest in 1984.

Public opposition spearheaded by religious leaders has chipped away at the popularity of Hollande’s plan. About 52% of French favour legalising gay marriage, according to a survey released yesterday, down from 65% in August.

Hollande’s Socialist Party has sidestepped the debate on assisted reproduction, promising to examine it in March after party members split on including it in the latest proposal.

Protesters also went topless at St Peter’s Square to protest against the Vatican’s opposition to gay marriage.

— Reuters