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The scene comes as the far-right Italian government has in some cases stripped lesbian mothers from their children's birth certificates.
An Italian Catholic church is being put on blast for displaying a nativity scene with two moms and baby Jesus instead of the traditional Mary with Joseph figures with a baby Jesus figurine.
However, the priest at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Capocastello di Mercogliano who decided to give Jesus queer parents isn’t backing down. In fact, he’s defending the display.
"I wanted to show with this scene that families are no longer just the traditional ones," Father Vitaliano Della Sala told Reuters. "In our parishes, we see more and more children from the new types of families that exist and are part of our society, children of separated and divorced people, gay couples, single people, young mothers."
A senator with the co-ruling Forza Italia political party, Maurizio Gasparri, said the display is insulting.
Gasparri said that the nativity "offends all those who always had respect and devotion for the Holy Family."
Related: Nativity Scene With Two Josephs Enrages Conservative Colombians
The Pro-Vita & Famiglia (Pro-Life and Family) organization said that the display was "dangerous, as well as shameful and blasphemous."
The group started a petition urging the bishop in the area to do something about it. So far, that petition has gotten over 21,000 signatures.
But Della Sala said his views are in line with Pope Francis. Under a new decision by the pope, priests are now allowed to bless same-sex unions.
Italy legalized same-sex civil unions in 2016, but doesn’t allow same-sex marriage, “stepchildren adoption” or surrogacy, stances that rights groups attribute to opposition from the Catholic Church. The government under far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has even demanded that officials only register one biological parent on their birth certificate when same-sex couples have had children via surrogacy while abroad. Lesbian mothers have even been taken off the birth certificates of their children.
