Roundup: Italy's cabinet wins landmark confidence vote on same-sex union bill

The Italian government on Thursday won a landmark confidence vote in the upper house to push through a draft law on same-sex unions, following weeks of tense political fight.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's cabinet called the confidence vote on a "super-amendment" to the bill, after watering it down to gain support from Catholic and conservative forces in the senate.

The vote was held on Thursday evening, and senators voted 173 in favor and 71 against.

In case of a negative response, the cabinet would have been forced to step down.

The bill recognizes the civil union of same-sex couples, and gives them the same rights, benefits, and protections as straight married couples from many, but not all, perspectives.

Same-sex couples will be granted the right to see their partnership officially celebrated by state authorities, to benefit from the deceased partner's pension, to take the partner's surname, as well as get each other's property and inheritance.

They would be recognized the right to assist the partner in hospital, and access his or her medical records and other personal information, as much as family members.

However, the draft law does not give same-sex partnership the same status as marriage. Plus, any reference to the "need for faithfulness" in same-sex unions was removed, again in order to make them less similar to marriages.

Most of all, Renzi was forced to erase the provision on stepchild adoption rights from the bill in order to win support from the New Centre Right Party (NCD), a junior partner in the cabinet, and from some catholic members of his own Democratic Party (PD).

As such, the bill does not give gay and lesbian people the right to adopt their partner's children.

Renzi's decision to scrap such provision was announced after opposition Five Star Movement (M5S) last week pulled its support of an amendment that would have cut the debate and secured the first version of the bill a swifter passage in the upper house.

Missing M5S's support, the prime minister's party did not have enough votes to pass the legislation.

Opponents to the provision said the stepchild adoption would have encouraged same-sex couples to resort to surrogacy, which is when a woman outside the couple gives birth to a child for them. The practice is illegal in Italy.

Yet, stripping the bill of the parental rights drew strong criticism on the cabinet and Renzi's PD by gay rights advocates and those sectors of Italy's society who supported the original version of the law.

Both Renzi and Constitutional Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi declared the move was necessary in order to let the country have a first, although not "perfect", legislation on same-sex unions.

Indeed, Italy is yet the only major country in Europe where same-sex couples have no legal rights. The last attempt to introduce such legislation in the country had been in 2007, and failed.

The draft law will now move to the Lower House, where the cabinet has a more solid majority. As such, it is expected to receive a final approval within weeks. Endit